


Hear The Wheels As They Roll

by crossroadswrite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (bby!Isaac), (mamma stilinski and the hales i won't kill any of the baes don't worry), Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Stiles Stilinski, Canon Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Depictions of Domestic Abuse, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Even though it IS finished and i warned for this, Fix It Fic, Growing Up Together, Gun Violence, Hurt Derek Hale, Kidnapped Derek Hale, Multi, POV Stiles Stilinski, Pack Mother Stiles Stilinski, Series Rewrite, Slow Build, Stilinski Family Feels, Warning: Kate Argent, Werewolf Jackson Whittemore, Werewolf Reveal, angst & fluff, mentions of child abuse, this is what this fic is all about tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossroadswrite/pseuds/crossroadswrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can’t be here. This is private property,” someone calls out and for some reason that voice sounds painfully familiar.</p>
<p>When it hits him why, Stiles almost chokes with the realization, “Derek Hale,” he says, unbelievably happy because he remembers Derek when they were young.</p>
<p>Derek looks grumpier, sadder, angrier. Stiles can’t really fault him for that. He also looks surprised that Stiles knows who he is. He squint/glares suspiciously at him, his nostrils flare for a second before he widens his eyes almost dramatically.</p>
<p>“Stiles,” he says quietly, like he can’t really believe it.</p>
<p>Stiles beams, “Yeah, you remember me!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: tonight we are young

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Rita's crazy train ride!! Where I plan a fic that's possibly going to be around 100k!! Even if the most I've written ever was around 30k!! On accident!!
> 
> Okay, so full disclosure on this: it's going to be a behemoth of a fic and I can't guarantee you I won't drop it and I also won't promise regular updates. Ever.
> 
> I can promise you, though, that it's going to be ginormous, like, every chapter will be the size of a regular fic (the first chapter has hit 20k already and I'm only halfway done with it) and that prologue aside, I'll finish every chapter in such a way that it could stand as the end of the fic, so if I do drop it, you'll be able to leave with a somewhat sense of closure.
> 
> Betaed by the love of my life, [Evan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cannibals_Welcome/pseuds/Cannibals_Welcome), who is the only reason I've been writing this and powering through.

“Are we there yet?” Stiles asks, smushing his face against the partition separating the back of the Sheriff’s squad car from the front.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff sighs, “We’re on _patrol,_ we’re not going anywhere. You know that.”

“You said we could get curly fries. Mom said I could get curly fries ‘cause I got the best grade in Math after Lydia. When are we getting curly fri- doggy!” he coos, lunging across the back seat so he can smash his face against the window and coo at the labradoddle waltzing down the street.

“Don’t lick the window.”

“I’m not!”

“Stiles.”

“I’m not! I was seeing the doggy. Are we getting curly fries now?”

The Sheriff sighs again like he’s Atlas and someone just dumped the world on his shoulders, “Ten more minutes. Then we can go. If you can be quiet.”

Stiles mimes zipping his lips together and bobs his head up and down, leaning back against the seats.

The Sheriff taps his thumb against the wheel, counting the minutes until Stiles breaks and speaks again.

“When can I shoot your gun?”

“Never.”

“Why?”

“With your luck, kid, you’d shoot yourself in the foot.”

Stiles pouts, crosses his arms, “I could be good.”

“Or you could not be good.”

“Mom says you don’t know until you try and you should always try new things,” he counters.

The Sheriff snorts, shaking his head disbelievingly, “I think Mom will agree with me on this one.”

The police radio on the dashboard crackles and Denise’s voice comes through announcing a four-one-five, possible two-seven-three-delta on a residence somewhere in the most upscale neighborhood Beacon Hills has to offer.

The Sheriff answers, says he’s on his way, for them not to worry.

“Four-one-five is a disturbance right?” Stiles pipes up from the backseat, starting to bounce with excitement, “And a two-seven-three-delta is domestic violence, right Daddy?” he presses.

“I don’t even want to know how you know that kiddo.”

“I have my contacts,” Stiles says cryptically.

“You smuggled Denise a doughnut and she told you didn’t she?”

Stiles looks put upon, huffs a little.

“Yeah.”

The Sheriff snorts and turns on the sirens, turning the car towards the Martins’ house, speeding up a little on his way there.

Mr. Martin is an upstanding member of society. Business man, a beautiful wife and a kid. Uses Old Spice and slicks his hair back, is never seen without a suit and tie.

He’s been a cop for long enough to know that sometimes the ones that look the best are the worst, and if the bruises Mrs. Martin sometimes sports on her wrists and arms are anything to go by, Mr. Martin is past due a visit from the police department.

“I need you to be quiet and stay in the car, okay Stiles,” he starts, “sit on the passenger side and _don’t_ get out of the car no matter what. If you do there’s a world of pain waiting for you, get it.”

Stiles bobs his head vehemently, little hands clutching at the bars separating the backseat from the front.

“Scout’s honor.”

The Sheriff turns the siren off when they get close to the house. It just wouldn’t do for Mr. Martin to straighten things up before he could even catch him at it.

“You were never a scout.”

“And whose fault is that,” Stiles counters.

The Sheriff parks, turning to Stiles with a pointed finger, “Sit in the passenger side. Don’t get out of the car. Don’t enter that house.”

“Is that Lydia Martin’s house?”

“Stiles!”

“Okay, I won’t.”

The Sheriff nods, sends a prayer to whatever entities there are above that his kid will listen to him just this once. Just this once, please.

He pops the button of his holster and palms his gun, moving towards the house cautiously, eyes skimming the perimeter.

In the large window next to the front door there’s a little face peeking out, angelic looking, redhead in two messy pig tails and tears falling down the girl’s face.

Sheriff waves, takes his badge out to show it to the girl who immediately disappears and not two seconds later throws the door open, little sobs being ripped out of her throat, “Dad is hurting Mommy again. Please help her.”

He nods, “Can you tell me where?” he whispers. The girl points a shaking finger upstairs to where he can hear angry shouting and quiet sobbing, “Thank you. My son is in the car. Do you think you can go to him while I help your mommy?”

The girl’s bottom lip wobbles and she shakes her head, “I don’t wanna leave her,” she whispers.

“I’ll stay with her,” his son whispers, taking Lydia’s hand and leading her away to the opposite end of the house.

The Sheriff bites down on a curse and climb up the stairs while trying to make minimal noise.

Something smashes in the room to his right and he decides that now is the perfect time to kick the door down, so he does.

“Sheriff Department, put it down,” he shouts, gun aimed at where Mr. Martin stands over Mrs. Martin, wielding a- is that a towel rack?

The man is breathing hard, but drops his weapon, putting both hands up in the air carefully and offering the Sheriff a sharp smile.

“This is not-”

“-what it looks like?” the Sheriff hazards, doing his damnedest not to roll his eyes, “It never is. Mr. Martin you’re under arrest for assault and battery,” he starts, taking his cuffs off his belt and starting towards the man, “you have the right to remain silent, everything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law-”

“Now wait a second, I’m sure there’s a way we can fix this-”

“You have the right to an attorney, if you can’t afford one, the state will-”

“Just tell me your price!” the man shouts.

“Are you trying to bribe me?”

“I’m-” the man splutters.

“Please turn around Mr. Martin,” John says, forcing the man to turn around with a firm grip on his arm and slapping the cuffs on his wrists, “When we get to the station you and me are going to have a little chat about exactly which deputies took bribes from you.”

He turns to the woman, still trying to catch her breath on the floor, black and blue and purples marring her skin, blood gushing sluggishly from her lip and a little from her nose.

John tightens the cuffs on Mr. Martin’s wrists a little more.

Picking up the radio he calls dispatch, sending over an ambulance and back-up to take the Martin women’s statements.

“There’s no need for an ambulance I’m-”

“Bleeding, probably concussed. Do you think you have anything broken?”

She shakes her head, “No, I don’t think so.”

“The ambulance shouldn’t take long, can you walk downstairs or do you need help?”

Mrs. Martin gets herself up and dusts herself off with a wince, tilting her chin up, “I’m perfectly capable of walking myself downstairs, thank you Sheriff.”

He nods, keeping his grip on Mr. Martin’s arm as his wife strides barefoot out of their room and down the stairs.

Hell of a woman that one. She and Claudia should go out for tea and maybe for world domination plans sometime.

“You see how she is, she provoked-”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll put you on lock up with a biker who was just arrested for attempted murder. Someone hit on the bartender the wrong way. He almost killed them. How do you think he’ll take to you, Mr. Martin?”

Mr. Martin shuts his mouth with a click; the Sheriff bites down on his “That’s what I fucking thought, punk!”

He hears the police sirens, sees the blue and red flashing through the window that faces the front of the house and starts shepherding Mr. Martin down the stairs, reading him his Miranda rights.

Stiles is opening the front door, ordering the deputies and the EMTs to where they need to be. John distantly thinks that if his kid does turn out to be a deputy like he says he wants to now, he’ll be one of the damn best Beacon Hills has ever seen.

“Dad,” he calls after the Sheriff has handed Mr. Martin to a deputy so he can be led away, “can I stay a little with Lydia and Mrs. Martin?”

“I’m not sure if they want you to, kiddo.”

“But I need to make sure they do their jobs right!” his kid argues, honest to God stomping his foot on the ground.

At least he throws tantrums for all the right reasons.

“Stiles-” he starts, only to be interrupted by a deputy that looks frustrated.

“Sheriff. Little miss Martin says she won’t say anything without Stiles there to make sure I’m doing my job right.”

Stiles gives him a shit eating grin and bolts to the living room.

The Sheriff trails a little slower behind.

His kid has the Martin girl practically on top of him, guiding the deputy who looks not amused at all with the situation through the interview, pausing to glare at the EMT that’s taking care of Mrs. Martin every time she hisses.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he argues.

The woman taking care of Mrs. Martin - something Reyes, the Sheriff thinks her name is - raises an eyebrow at him, “And you could do better, kid?”

Stiles squeezes Lydia’s hand once before jumping off the couch and taking the cotton from Reyes and dabbing it on Mrs. Martin’s lip with impossible gentleness.

“Mommy gets hurt sometimes. I get hurt a lot. She taught me how to,” he shrugs a shoulder.

Reyes looks up at the Sheriff with sharp eyes.

“Uh, strong personality?” he tries.

Reyes snorts and shakes her head, deciding to give in and guide Stiles through patching Mrs. Martin up.

Lydia is looking at him with approving, red rimmed eyes, like she just decided Stiles’ entire fate.

“You’re gonna be my best friend,” she decides when Stiles is done with Mrs. Martin and clambering back up on the couch.

“But I have a best friend,” Stiles splutters.

“I’m your girl best friend,” she decides with a tone of finality and then proceeding to plop herself on Stiles and demand him to comfort her.

The Sheriff supresses his amused smile. You really shouldn’t mess with Martin women.

When they finally leave the Martin household it’s late. Later than he predicted and his son has fallen asleep on the couch with Lydia, absolutely refusing to leave her side now that she’s his best friend who’s a girl. And the only reason they do leave is because Claudia gets home from her seminary and calls him to demand he come home with her son.

«»

For the next week in school everyone is whispering about what went down in the Martin house. Well, the adults are whispering about it, the kids are either completely ignoring it or talking loudly and senselessly about it, being shushed by grown-ups.

Stiles has been taken aside exactly five times by different people and gently coached into telling them _exactly_ what happened. Stiles has already put five different adults to shame and told them that it’s official police business and that they should be more worried with that Greenberg kid who keeps eating grass.

Lydia only comes back to school three days after Stiles’ dad arrested her mean dad.

Stiles doesn’t really know if she’s still his girl best friend or not because people change their minds a lot and they lie too. But Lydia flips her braid from her shoulder and plops down in the sit next to Stiles.

Scott peers at her from Stiles’ other side, “Psst, Stiles?” he whispers.

Stiles turns to him, leaning over when Scott motions him to, “Lydia Martin is sitting next to you.”

He sighs, “Thank you, Scott. I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh. Good thing I told you then.”

Lydia snorts inelegantly and peers over at Scott, “I see they didn’t teach you sarcasm yet.”

“Miss Martin that’s not your place,” the teacher calls out.

Stiles watches in awe as Lydia turns to the front of the room, bottom lip wobbling and sniffling a little bit, “I- I just thought- that maybe, after-” she looks down and bites her lip and looking close to tears, “After Stiles helped me with- I could-”

The teacher looks horrified with himself, “That’s quite okay, Miss Martin. Whoever sat next to Mr. Stilinski can trade with you.”

Lydia nods pitifully, waiting for the teacher to turn his back before grinning up at Stiles.

Stiles looks at her a little star struck before he begs, “Teach me everything you know.”

Lydia’s smile amps up, her cheeks dimpling.

Stiles thinks that Lydia is going to be the best girl best friend ever.

He learns a lot of things about Lydia.

She likes everything and anything with strawberries in it. She thinks Jackson Whittemore is kinda cute even if he’s an asshole and she thinks Thomas Hale is _the_ cutest boy in school. He knows she actually _likes_ math and she’s probably the smartest person Stiles has _ever_ met. He doesn’t know why he was never friends with Lydia before, but he’s really happy that he gets  to be her friend now.

Stiles also discovers that Lydia is terrifying and he thinks he falls a little bit in love with her right then and there. But not kissy love, more like, I wanna be your friend forever and let’s take over the school love.

He finds this out because Jackson is a mean buttface.

Lydia and him and Scott are playing Supervillains – Lydia came up with it, she said superheroes were boring – and Jackson comes to them with a grumpy face, his friend Danny trailing behind him, and pushes Stiles to the floor.

“You stole my friend,” he shouts accusingly.

“I did not!” Stiles shouts right back, because he didn’t.

“Yes, you did. Lydia was my friend first!” his bottom lip starts wobbling and he angrily sniffles.

“I’m not your friend anymore,” Lydia shouts in his face, “You are mean and don’t know how to write your last name and your daddy doesn’t give you hugs!”

Jackson’s eyes widen impossibly before he breaks down crying, running towards one of the teachers.

“That was mean,” Danny tells her, looking upset.

Lydia crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her chin up, “He was being mean to Stiles too.”

Danny considers this and then nods, before running after Jackson.

Stiles blinks up at Lydia in awe, “You yelled at Jackson for me?”

Lydia offers him a hand, helping him get up, “Of course. You’re my best friend now, Stiles.”

He grins at her and gives her a hug.

Lydia freezes for a couple of seconds before hugging back.

“Hey! I’m Stiles’ best friend,” Scott protests, pouting.

Stiles pulls him into the hug and tells him that they can both be his best friends. Forever.

They all agree and at the end of school Lydia makes Stiles sign a contract saying that he is, in fact, going to be her best friend forever and writing down the rules of their friendship.

Stiles signs at the bottom dutifully and keeps a copy of it.

«»

Lydia, Stiles and Scott spend a lot of time in each other’s house. They watch movies and sometimes they play dress-up (mostly when they go to Lydia’s) and they bake cakes.

They like Stiles’ house the best though, because Stiles’ mom always has candy stashed somewhere and she always has stories about puppies and kitties to tell them, especially when she’s just got out from working at the animal clinic.

Sometimes she even brings home a kitty or a puppy that need to be under constant care.

They all love Mrs. Stilinski a lot.

She always has a smile for them.

Until she doesn’t.

It starts so slowly they don’t notice at first. She forgets things constantly: words, her car keys, the door unlocked, the stove on.

And then she stops smiling altogether. Sometimes she doesn’t eat. Sometimes she answers aggressively, shrugs her shoulders when they ask the simplest things and pulls away from every touch.

It becomes so bad that Stiles ends up at the McCall’s or the Martin’s more often than not. It becomes so bad that Stiles stops talking altogether. He just sits there and tries to understand why, _why_ is his mom acting like this and what has he done wrong.

The very worst are the good days, because they’re good. And yes, he does know how bad that sounds, but the good days always bring with them hope, always bring one of his mother’s smiles and maybe a trip to the ice cream parlor.

Good days, many times brings his mother’s apologies because she doesn’t know either she doesn’t understand either, but she’s still so sorry and she cries and tells them that.

Stiles tells her it’s okay, it’s all okay. He kisses her cheek and hides his face on her shoulder and tries to kick the hope down and dirty to the floor.

It’s on one of those rare good days that they do something about it. Stiles’ mom is on sick leave from her work at the vets and she decides to take him to the ice cream parlor.

Except- except they arrive there and she can’t remember how to say vanilla or chocolate or mango. She frowns and points, but she can’t _say_ the words because she doesn’t remember them. She sometimes gets mad about it. So mad that sometimes the thing nearest to her will go smashing against a wall. Sometimes it’s a glass that will break and cause Stiles to cut his foot on, sometimes it’s an old family vase, sometimes it’s his parents wedding picture.

Today though, she just looks defeated and sad and hopeless, puts money on Stiles’ hand and tells him to order for her, before she walks out the door.

The waitress gives him two ice cream cones for free and a pitying look.

Stiles learns to hate those immediately and aggressively.

When he walks out he sees his mom standing with Derek Hale, both hands on his face as he clutches at her arms desperately.

“But it’s not fair!” Derek is saying.

“It’s okay. You’ll take good care of him,” his mom reassures him.

Stiles keeps walking forwards, muttering a tiny “Hi,” and hunching on himself.

He doesn’t want Derek to give him that look the waitress gave him. He always liked Derek. He’s not mean to Stiles like most of the older boys and girls are.

“I’m sorry,” Derek tells him honestly, sincerely, voice breaking.

He’s the very first one to tell Stiles he’s sorry. He still doesn’t understand why people are sorry for his mother’s sickness it’s not their fault.

He tells him as much.

Derek says, “I can be sorry that it’s happening to you, even if it’s not my fault.”

Stiles considers this for a second, ice cream slipping down his fingers, before he nods and says “Thank you. I’m sorry too.”

His mother is looking between them, looking satisfied, “You’ll be good for him,” she tells Derek with all the certainty that only a mother can have.

Derek sets his jaw and nods, accepting this.

“Stiles, baby, wanna go home?”

“Okay,” he says, giving his mother’s ice cream to her, when she shakes her head, he considers and gives his own to Derek, “Chocolate is my favorite so you can take it and I’ll take mom’s okay?”

Derek blinks at him for a second before taking the ice cream and thanking Stiles for it sincerely.

He likes Derek the best from all the Hales. Even Cora or Thomas that are in his class.

They get back home to two fire trucks standing in front of the house, firemen talking to the Sheriff and some other deputies.

“Our house,” Stiles gasps, running towards it, his dad barely catching him before he can walk inside.

His mother is looking horrified, tears pooling in her eyes, “What did I do?” she asks, her voice breaking.

“We can’t kn-”

“John, what did I do!” she demands.

His dad rubs his forehead, his shoulders slump in defeat.

“You left the stove on, burned out our entire kitchen and a little of the living room, but besides that it’s fi-”

“No!” his mother shouts. Stiles flinches, hides behind his dad’s legs, “It’s not okay! I burned our- our- our-”

She lets out a frustrated scream, pointing at the Stilinski residence, “That! I burned that! And I can’t even think of the word. I can’t even think-”

“It’s oka-” his dad tries.

“No. No it’s not. I’m not okay. I’m not- you need to take me to the hospital or maybe to Eichen House or-”

“No! Not to Eichen, you’re not crazy.”

“What am I then?” she spits. Stiles buries his face in the back of his dad’s legs.

The Sheriff sighs long and pained and finally admitting it, “You’re sick. You’re sick and you need help, but you’re not crazy.”

They take her to the hospital.

They call it Frontal Temporal Dementia. Say there’s no cure for it and that his mom should have three years to live. And then they say two years. And then they say two months and call it a phenomenon. That they’ve never seen that disease spread so fast, act so fast.

Stiles learns to hate Doctors and their clinical excitement of something new.

Lydia and Scott start sitting a little closer to him, his teacher doesn’t call on him in class and doesn’t give him too much homework.

After school he always asks if they can go see Mom. His dad says yes most times. Sometimes he says no and Stiles will scream and kick until he takes him to the hospital and he can say hi to his mom.

He does it even when his mom can’t remember who he is anymore; does it when she can’t even speak anymore and is apathetic and unresponsive.

One day he walks to see Talia Hale in his mom’s room. Doctor Deaton next to her, shaking his head regretfully.

“Stiles,” Derek calls, walks over to him and offers some of his M&Ms. He doesn’t say he’s sorry again and Stiles is very thankful for that. By now he’s lost count of how many times people have said they’re sorry to him.

“What are you doing here?”

“We wanted to come visit,” Deaton says passively.

Talia makes a frustrated noise, barely audible and snaps, “Are you sure?”

“It’s not something you can fix. It’s not a broken bone, Talia.”

“You’re not a doctor,” Stiles tells her, moving to his chair and grabbing his mother’s hand.

“What?” Derek frowns.

“Your mom is not a doctor. She couldn’t fix it even if it was a broken bone.”

“It was merely an expression,” Deaton informs him.

“It’s a stupid expression,” Stiles snaps.

Derek makes a little noise and scoots closer to him. Talia and Deaton look at him, not pitying but not far from it.

“But how can you _know_?”

“I know many things. Some of them are better left untold, but trust that I’m right.”

Talia bares her teeth and Stiles could almost swear he heard Derek growl.

“Either way, her spark would reject it. She’d di-” he throws a look at Stiles “She’d meet the same end.”

“I know she’s going to die, you can say it.”

A warm hand settles on the back of his neck and Stiles’ entire body immediately relaxes.

He looks up to see Derek looking worriedly down at him and fidgeting like he wants to do _something_ but he can’t.

“Oh,” Talia says quietly, “Deaton and me should get going. Do you mind if Derek keeps you company for a little while, Stiles?”

He shakes his head once, receiving a tiny smile from Talia.

“I’ll be back for him in a bit and leave you to it.”

Deaton and Talia walk out of the room then, leaving just Derek and him alone, his mom laying blessedly unaware of her surroundings.

“Did you know-” he begins, throat clogging up, “she doesn’t know who I am anymore. Or who Dad is. She doesn’t even sp-speak and I just want my mom,” the first sob leaves his throat and then it’s like someone bombed a dam and Stiles can’t stop crying.

Somehow he ends up sitting on Derek’s lap, face buried in his chest and crying quietly for a mother that he’s already lost even if her body is laying not five inches away from him.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep there, but he does and wakes up in his own bed.

It’s the best he has slept in a long while and he feels horrible for it. He shouldn’t get to sleep while his mom is at the hospital being impossibly sick and almost dead.

Lydia asks if he wants to go to her house after school. He says no and she gives him a tight hug.

Scott tells him when he grows up he’s going to be a vet like Stiles’ mom was. Stiles doesn’t really know what to say to that because nowadays he never does, so he says “Okay,” and Scott hugs him too.

Jackson comes to him holding Danny’s hand and looking a little sad. Stiles doesn’t understand why Jackson would be sad until he aggressively hugs Stiles and says he’s sorry that he was mean to him.

Stiles thinks it feels a little like pity, but Jackson looks genuinely sorry, he looks like someone kicked his puppy and then ran it over with a four-wheeler so Stiles hugs him back and tells him it’s okay.

Jackson and Danny start hanging out a little with him and Lydia and Scott. He doesn’t really like Scott, but Danny does and that’s enough to make Jackson behave.

That day he feels a little better and goes to the hospital just to say hi.

His dad is at work. He’s been working a lot, but that’s okay. It’s not like he could do anything about it.

Stiles sits next to his mom and watches her breathe slowly. He wraps his fingers around her longer ones, holding carefully like he’s handling precious china.

“I’ll take care of you, mom,” he promises solemnly, keeping his eyes on her. As long as he’s looking she can’t slip away from him.

Her disease snuck up on them while they weren’t looking so he just needs to pay attention and she’ll be okay.

The doctors say that she gets better when Stiles is around. He doesn’t know if they’re lying or if not, but he chooses to believe it anyway.

The machine hiccups, signaling something wrong with her and Stiles lunges for the call button, slamming it down and waiting until Mrs. McCall barges in.

The machine hiccups again and again before stabilizing, “What’s happening?” he begs.

Mrs. McCall looks impossibly sad.

“No! No, no no no no. I’m watching over her. I’m watching over her. It can’t happen if I’m watching over her. Please no,” he starts hiccupping, clutches at his mother’s fingers.

“Stiles, honey-”

“Please don’t make me, please. I was watching like I was supposed to I was- I was being good, I’m sorry, please don’t take her away.”

Melissa’s face crumples up, “I’m so sorry, baby,” she whispers just as doctors and nurses flood the room and force Stiles out of the way.

Melissa takes him by the shoulders and turns him around so he doesn’t have to watch.

He clutches at her tightly and sobs into her hospital gown, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, hon,” she whispers, picking him up like Stiles is four all over again and carrying him out of the hospital room.

“It’s not fair,” he sobs, “It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair.”

Melissa sits down on one of the waiting chairs just outside his mom’s room and starts rocking him back and forward.

“No, it’s not.”

He sobs and cries into her neck until his throat is raw and his eyes hurt and he feels like he’s got nothing left and he’s lost an entire world.

He hears the doctors filing out slowly, her hospital bed being rolled out of the room and away. He pulls his face tighter against Melissa’s neck.

The sound of feet pounding against the floor reaches his ears next and he doesn’t have to turn to see that it’s his dad.

“No,” he hears, “I- I- No! I didn’t say goodbye. I should’ve-”

He hears something being kicked and clattering to the floor, sobs drily into Melissa’s shoulder.

Stiles turns to see his dad slumped on the floor, head in his hands and shoulders hunched over, shaking slightly.

It’s the first time he’s ever seen his dad cry and something in him breaks with that too.

He doesn’t remember exactly how they got from the hospital to their house, probably Mrs. McCall took them. He just remembers waking up on his bed, his whole body aching, pressure behind his eyelids and having to rush to the bathroom to throw up bile, his breath quickening and quickening and suddenly he can’t breathe anymore, he can’t-

His mom is dead, she’s gone, she’s- she’s- what’s he going to _do_ now. He doesn’t know what to do. He needs his mom. She’s good at this, she’s- _gone._

Stiles sobs, still trying to gulp air in, his vision blacking out slowly, hands shaking uncontrollably and he can’t _think_. He needs his mom- he needs-

The Sheriff throws the bathroom door open, kneeling in front of him and taking his face in both hands.

“Stiles I need you to breathe, please breathe with me okay. Can you do that?”

He shakes his head. He can’t focus, he can’t breathe, he’s going to die and leave his dad all alone.

His father’s hands on him tighten, “Come on, son. In. One-two-three-four. Out. One-two-three-four-five. In. One-two-three-four. And out. That’s it. Atta boy, just breathe with me. That’s right.”

Somehow, slowly, he gets his breathing back to normal, tears and snot smearing his face.

“Dad,” he chokes out, “she’s gone.”

His dad entire being crumples up and he pulls him into his lap, rocking both of them back and forward and shushing Stiles gently, “I know, kiddo, I know.”

They stay like that for a long, long time.

That entire week, Stiles doesn’t set foot in school, but he still learns. He learns that grief tastes different to every person. To him it tastes like bile and tears and snot and the cotton of his pillow. To his dad it tastes like glass and the whiskey he pours in it. It tastes a little like burned food to them both and a lot like silences filled with pain and helplessness.

The McCalls and the Martins are the first ones to visit them. Stiles doesn’t really know what would be of him and his dad without them.

Mrs. McCall and Mrs. Martin take his dad’s bottles away, put him in a shower and clean up around the house. Lydia and Scott pull Stiles down from his room for the first time in a long while and set him in front of the TV, a marathon of Spiderman cartoons on as he is aggressively cuddled from both sides and fed cookies and hot chocolate.

It doesn’t make everything magically go away, but it lessens the weight of it a little bit.

Next come the Whittemores and the Maehalani. Both bearing casseroles and heartfelt condolences that Lydia’s mom accepts with class.

Jackson forces himself into the puppy pile happening on the couch and pretends like he’s not participating in it while Danny embraces it like he was born to cuddle.

A parade of neighbors and friends of his mom follows, but they only give food and condolences, sometimes only condolences, and never stay for long. Mrs. Martin and Mrs. McCall handle all of it keeping his dad straight and in line.

The Hales come last, and when they do, it’s only Talia’s kids.

Stiles gets up to open the door for a change, since Lydia and Scotty are passed out on the couch and Mrs. Martin is busy doing something. He doesn’t understand what, but it’s probably important.

He opens the door in his Batman jammies and dragging a blanket behind him. The three Hales look down at him, “Hi,” he says after a beat passes and none of them open their mouths, “Do you wanna come in?”

They nod, stumble on each other to get in.

Cora shoving both of her siblings to the side so she can hug him fiercely, before letting go quickly and moving towards the living room. Laura shoves a metal tin at him and he’s never seen Laura Hale be awkward, but he knows that there’s a first for everything when she awkwardly says, “We didn’t know what you needed so we made you chocolate chip cookies. Well, Der made you chocolate chip cookies, we licked the batter off of things.”

Stiles snorts, says a quiet thank you. Laura ruffles his hair and follows her younger sister into the living room.

Derek is still standing there, looking like he wants to do something, but not sure if he’s allowed or not.

Stiles sets the tin down carefully and tells him, “You’re more constipated than Batman,” before stepping forward and looping his arms around Derek’s middle.

Derek sighs in relief and folds forwards, hugging Stiles back and squeezing slightly.

“Are you going to tell me you’re sorry again?” Stiles whispers.

“Do you want me to?”

He shakes his head.

Stiles waits a beat, “Beauty and the Beast is playing on TV. Do you wanna come and watch?”

Derek raises an eyebrow, but gives him a firm nod and an attempt of a smile.

Stiles beams at him and tugs him into the living room, plopping down on the floor with the rest of the Hales.

He falls asleep on Derek by the time the end credits roll; seriously considers renting him as a body pillow since he’s the best to sleep on.

He goes back to school next Monday. He has his friends and he has the Hales who are always kind to him. He has his dad and Scott’s and Lydia’s moms.

He carries on, like he must do.

«»

He waits for it to get easier but it never does. Living without his mom right there to fall back on is horrible, but somehow it seems he got two very cool aunts that are there as much as they can be in the process.

Mrs. Martin and Mrs. McCall are always around, they organize sleepovers and teach Stiles how to cook and what to do when his dad leans a little too heavily on the bottle. Some part of him thinks that he shouldn’t be taught these things so early, but the other argues that this is his dad and he has to take care of him at the best of his abilities.

Sure, he has Lydia and Scott and Mrs. Martin and Mrs. McCall and they’d always be there when he needed to, but he doesn’t know how he ever could handle losing his dad like that.

Things don’t get easier but they get… normal.

The teachers go back to treating him like they used to – with a healthy dose of frustration and despair – Lydia and Scott are still his best friends, now with the addition of Jackson and Danny in their group. Jackson even pushed a boy who made fun of Stiles. It felt a little bit like having a personal bodyguard.

Third to fifth grade are not very hard. At least not for most of them. Scott has a bit of trouble, but they all help and Mrs. McCall buys them the good kind of cookies as a reward.

Plus when Stiles really doesn’t understand something he has Lydia to help and if Lydia doesn’t understand either he’ll ask Dad to drop them off at the Hales and Derek always helps him.

Laura and Uncle Peter seem to make fun of him for some reason, until Stiles reminds Laura about that boy who had a hand down her-

Laura always covers his mouth before he can finish.

To Uncle Peter he just grins and says, “Didn’t I dump an entire bowl of hot sauce on you that once?” which always gets him a growl and some stomping off. He’s never seen an adult stomp off before. It’s weird.

Derek always puffs up his chest and gives his family a smug grin when Stiles defends him. He doesn’t get why, but he grins back because he likes making Derek happy.

When Stiles is nine, almost ten! Derek gets a girlfriend and he seems always very uncomfortable when Stiles bumps into them.

The very first time that happens he uneasily introduces her as Paige, rubbing the back of his neck. Laura is with them and she glances from Paige to Stiles and back again before snorting and telling her brother he’s pathetic.

The Hales do a lot of things Stiles doesn’t understand and he will never stop thinking it’s frustrating.

Paige smiles pretty at him, she says she plays the cello and that she’ll play in big houses one day. Stiles nods along says that’ll be awesome.

He tells Derek he likes Paige because she’s the nicest and she doesn’t look down on him like other teenagers do. Also Paige is hilarious and sarcastic and takes zero shit from anyone. Stiles might be a little bit in awe.

Paige disappears a couple of months later and his dad has to bring Derek in for questioning.

Derek looks sad and in pain, so Stiles begs Denise for money to cheer his friend up and buys the candy Derek likes the best. Gives it to him when he gets out of the interrogation room with his mom trailing behind.

“Do you want me to say I’m sorry?” he asks.

Derek presses his lips together, “Are you sorry?”

Stiles nods. He’s sorry for anything that hurts any of his friends and Derek is his friend.

“That’s good enough then,” Derek says before Talia Hale leads him away.

He doesn’t see Derek for a long time after that and when he does it’s just glimpses. Sometimes he’s alone, sometimes he’s with a blonde woman that looks old enough to be his aunt.

Stiles doesn’t like her. She smiles like bullies smile and handles Derek like she owns him.

He doesn’t say anything to Derek though. He tells his dad, but nowadays his dad is overworked and too tired.

He writes it down on a note and puts it in his desk at the Station.

There’s something deep in his bones buzzing, little sparks fizzling and making his hair stand on end.

Stiles thinks something very. very bad is going to happen.

«»

When he knows what horrible thing happened he’s sitting at the Station, on one of the nicest deputy’s desk. The one who gives him candy and tells him details about crimes and stuff.

He kicks his legs back and forward when he hears a commotion and most of the deputies start filling out. His dad tells Stiles to stay put and this time he does because it feels like whatever is happening is immensely important.

The deputies are gone for two hours and when they come back they look defeated and haunted. They look like something terrible and unspeakable just happened.

Stiles’ heart immediately sinks to his feet, and then it sinks a little lower when his Dad comes in with Laura and Derek who look in shock, soot staining their faces and arms and a path of tears engraved on their faces.

He sits Derek on the waiting room for a little bit while he leads Laura into interrogation, looking like he’d rather be kicking puppies than leading Laura Hale into one of those sterile rooms to ask her questions.

The nice deputy comes back and Stiles immediately demands answers.

The man nudges Stiles out of his chair and let’s himself fall tiredly on it, “There was a fire at the Hale house,” he starts slowly.

Stiles knows that only bad things come from fires. He still remembers hiding behind his father’s legs as his mom fell apart and their house burned in the background.

“Is everyone okay?” he asks anxiously.

“Derek and Laura are. Peter Hale is at the hospital. They don’t think he’s going to make it. That’s it.”

Stiles opens his mouth, shakes his head vehemently because no. No! How could something like this happen? How could- how could someone lose their entire family like that? Why didn’t anyone stop it?!

He feels like throwing up and crying but he doesn’t because Derek doesn’t need that.

Stiles carefully makes his way towards Derek, giving him time to send him away if he needs to. When he doesn’t Stiles hops on the chair next to him and Derek all but slumps against his side.

He whispers, barely audible, “I’m sorry,” because I’m sorries should be saved for really important times and this is one of them.

Derek doesn’t say anything, starts tugging Stiles to him.

He gets the picture and sits on Derek’s lap wrapping his arms around him and squeezing tightly. Maybe if he holds on tight enough he can keep Derek from splintering away.

Derek buries his face in Stiles’ neck and stays there for a long time, until Stiles can feel wet tears on his skin and Derek is shaking slightly.

He holds on a little tighter.

His dad comes back with Laura, takes a look at them and makes for his office, leaving Derek alone for now.

Laura sits down heavily next to them. Stiles extends his hand and wiggles his fingers until she takes them in her own, squeezes slightly.

They stay like that for so long, Derek stops crying and a lot of the deputies leave for home, being relieved by others that look just as stricken.

They stay exactly like that until Mrs. Martin comes to pick him up and take him back to Lydia’s.

At first he puts up a fight, but then Laura says it’s best if he goes home and so he does.

Squeezing Derek one last time he jumps from his lap and stops. Pulling his shirt sleeve up he unlatches the bracelet he made with Lydia. Not the one she gave him. One he did on his own in warm shades of red and green and orange like autumn.

Stiles tugs at Derek’s hand and fastens it around his wrists, presses down on it and closes his eyes, whispers, ”For protection,” and wills it with everything he’s got, with his very soul to protect Derek.

When he opens his eyes again Laura and Derek are staring at him like he’s something they’ve never seen before. It’s a little weird.

Mrs. Martin takes his hand and starts tugging him away.

He waves goodbye at them and turns to leave.

When he gets to the Martins he goes straight to Lydia and tugs her down on her giant bed with him, tells her in hushed tones what happened and lets himself cry for the dozens of people that fire just took away.

Two days later when he asks around, he hears that Derek and Laura left town to be with family in New York City and they have no plans of coming back.

Stiles can’t help but feel a little like he just lost something precious.

«»

Stiles is still surprised, how after tragedies and death and loss the world doesn’t have the decency to stop and give the people left behind time to readjust.

Everything just keeps moving unforgivingly forward, leaving you scrambling to keep up.

Stiles manages to. Barely, but he does. Scott helps him and Lyds helps him and Jacks and Danny help him too.

In turn he protects all of them fiercely like he’s supposed to because like hell is he letting anything happen to his friends.

Sometimes in subtle ways, like bringing an extra jacket for Lydia when her outfit is too pretty for her to be properly warm. Sometimes in more noticeable ways like making a fool of himself  in class when Scott doesn’t know the answer and his breathing is starting to quicken a little too much or cheering for Jackson when he plays games in little league or punching the guy who called Danny a faggot in the face.

It’s all fun and games until they get to high school, because suddenly there’s the pressure of getting good grades so you get into a good college, there’s popularity and stereotypes and people start expecting something from you only based on the way you look.

Stiles and Scott immediately get classified as losers for whatever reason. Lydia is smart and sharp witted with a three phase plan to get to the top of high school hierarchy before junior years is over.

She does it in two months, tells Stiles he’s joining the lacrosse team with Jackson and Danny weather he wants to or not.

Stiles says no. Lydia breaks out the tears. Stiles tells her he hates her and asks Scott if he wants to join to.

That’s about how he ends up wearing a jersey with Jackson shoving him in the mud in the name of good sport.

Jackson is a dick, but he also helps Scott and Stiles after school with their throwing skills. Scott’s throwing sucks and his asthma doesn’t let him run around without ending in the hospital, but he’s a damn great goalie, only second to Danny who’s good at everything.

Stiles has started to suspect he was genetically engineered. Danny doesn’t deny it so it’s completely plausible.

Somehow, they’re the ones who make the cool kids table.

To say that the senior girls and jocks are not happy about it would be an understatement. The boys go a little too rough on them during lacrosse practice; the girls gang up on Lydia and try to kick her self-esteem to where Satan lives.

Stiles asks her if she’s okay. Lydia always flips her head says “Of course. Do you think anyone who wears that shirt with those jeans could bring me down?”

He lets it last until the day he goes over to the Martins to find Lydia crying quietly and glaring at the full body mirror.

The very next day, one of the girls is put into a rehabilitation house to deal with her bulimia problem after someone tipped her overprotective parents about it. Other gets expelled for paying people to do her assignments and the third gets into rehab for her alcohol problem.

Two of the boys in the lacrosse team get expelled and dumped in rehab for using steroids.

Lydia strides into the cafeteria and sets her tray down, looking Stiles up and down with squinted eyes, “You did this,” she states. It’s not a question.

Stiles shrugs, shoves mashed potatoes in his mouth, tells her he has no idea at all what she’s talking about.

Three of the boys in the lacrosse team corner Stiles after school one day.

Jackson, Danny and Scott stand up for him. Some kid named Boyd helps them out, since they were kinda getting their asses kicked. Seniors take their training routine very seriously and it’s not like any of them is an expert at fighting, sure Stiles has thrown a few punches around but that’s about the extent of it.

After an adult breaks it up, the kid named Boyd stands there awkwardly for about two seconds before starting to walk away.

“Hey wait up,” Stiles calls out, jogging after him, “I’m Stiles. That’s Jackson. Danny and that puppy over there is Scott. Your name is Boyd right?”

Boyd seems mildly surprised that he knows his name, which is to say he raises an eyebrow and stares.

“Right. It was pretty cool what you did back there man,” he grins trying to be reassuring, which probably is not working with blood dripping from his mouth.

Boyd gives him a bro nod before walking away.

Stiles squints after him before turning to Danny with a raised eyebrow. An hour later, Danny’s knocking on his door with everything there is to know about Vernon Boyd.

“Stiles! This is not how you make friends,” Scott complains from his place stretched out on Stiles’ bed and while he eats Stiles’ food. Stiles thinks that he has no ground to stand on.

“We’re just making sure he’s not a psycho killer, right Danny?”

“Yeah. It’s still pretty fucked up,” Danny concedes, the traitor.

Stiles makes an outraged noise, “Not my fault that Lydia basically trained us to be criminal masterminds. Speaking of. Where is she?”

“With Jackson. I think they went on a date.”

Scott falls off the bed with a squeak of “What?!”

Stiles sighs out a “Finally!” because those two have been dancing around each other for what feels like years. This is a good development.

“Right,” Danny agrees, plugging in his flashdrive and going over Boyd’s school record and information that makes Stiles a little scared of ever getting on Danny’s bad side.

Quiet. Keeps to himself. Decent grades. No friends that they know of. Parents barely show for PTA meetings, rides to school every day on a bus, sits alone at the cafeteria. Was seen several times kicking ass in defense of the underdogs. Regular unacknowledged hero.

“He’s lonely,” Danny mutters, sounding a little sad, “Which is a shame, have you seen those biceps,” he gushes. Well, he does the closesest Danny does to gushing, which is about getting this appreciative look and being on the verge of saying hmm-mmm dayum.

“Boy’s built like a brick shithouse,” Stiles agrees.

“Stiles?” Scott startles, still on the floor.

Stiles snorts at him, “I have raved about the many merits of Leo DiCaprio’s booty, you cannot think I’m completely straight.”

Scott gets this frowny thinking look on his face before he shrugs and says, “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Obviously.”

“What do you want to do with this?” Danny asks.

Stiles shrugs spins his chair and gets up, “He defended our honor. Pretty sure it’s bro code to at least befriend him.”

Scott, who has pulled his books down from Stiles’ bed and is now doing his homework on the floor, pipes in, “You do know you don’t owe him anything, right? Don’t do this out of pity.”

“I’m not. Dude’s lonely and he seems pretty cool right, saving our asses and all?”

He looks at Scott for a beat, waiting for him to counter. He doesn’t so Stiles rolls his shoulders, says “I’m going downstairs, you guys want anything?”

“Bring me a shake,” Danny asks, politely, like the polite person he is.

“Bring me more chips!”

“Stop eating all my food, Scott.”

“You offered.”

Stiles huffs dramatically, suppressing on a grin.

He walks downstairs to his dad sitting at the kitchen table and having what looks like a serious conversation with Jackson.

Oh-oh.

“Everything alright over here, guys?” he asks hesitantly.

This is new uncharted territory. His father never had serious talks with his friends.

His Dad looks up with a pondering look before telling him to sit down.

“We need to talk about one of your peers.”

“If this is about the fight-”

“What fight?” his dad interrupts, startled.

“What fight? No fight. What are you even talking about. I don’t know. So, Pops, what did you want to talk about?”

The Sheriff squints at him, “Don’t think I’m letting this fight talk go,” he warns, “but Jackson came to me, because he thinks the Lahey boy is being beaten up by his own father.”

Stiles doesn’t gasp but it’s a close thing. He can’t help but be disgusted that someone would do something like that. Abuse their own kid’s trust and break it in such a way.

Parents are supposed to protect and nurture, not break and destroy.

“What are you doing about it?” he urges. Surely his dad is going to do something about it.

The Sheriff shifts uncomfortably, “Unfortunately, sometimes police involvement can make things worse for the person being abused. I’m going to send patrol cars regularly through that part of town, see if one of my deputies can hear something that proves abuse. Unless the kid steps forward and is willing to testify there’s really not much I can do.”

Stiles presses his lips together, casting his eyes downwards for a second before he offers, “What can I do?”

The Sheriff’s lips twitch up, “You’re a good kid. But I don’t think there’s anything you can do. This is a delicate situation and you’re kind of all over the place, son.”

Jackson snorts, gives Stiles a shit eating grin.

“Hey!” Stiles says, mock offended, clutching at his chest, “That hurt, okay. My feelings are hurt now. I think our father/son relationship will never recuperate.”

The Sheriff sighs.

“You’re such a drama queen, Stilinski.”

Stiles glares at Jackson, “Aren’t you supposed to be out with Lydia or did she dump you already?”

Jackson bitches faces like the best of them, Stiles has to give him that, at least.

“Lydia had a mani and pedi scheduled. You do not get between Lydia Martin and a day at the hairdresser.”

They both shudder and nod in mutual agreement and terror.

“Hey, Danny’s upstairs, we’ll probs go play video games in a couple of hours after we finish-” he side eyes his dad, “our project. For school. Our school project. Nothing illegal is definitely happening upstairs,” he says slowly.

Luckily the Sheriff is too busy stuffing his face with the leftover cake that Stiles doesn’t let him eat to actually hear it. God, Stiles wouldn’t last three seconds as a spy.

“Hey no. Bad Dad. That’s going to clog your arteries and make you die,” he admonishes, taking the plate away and dumping it back in the fridge, instead giving his dad one of those awful, awful, truly terrible tasting yogurts to eat.

His dad glares at him like he’s sorry he didn’t trade him away for the ability to spin gold.

Well, technically, Stiles could’ve given him one of those flavored ones, but Stiles is grounded and a teenager. He’s allowed to be resentful.

“Come on, Jackson! Let’s waste away our brains in front of a too small screen.”

“I call dibs on Danny.”

“That’s not even fair! You always call dibs on Danny,” Stiles complains, already climbing up the stairs with Jackson hot on his heels.

“Yeah, because Danny is the only other person in the room who isn’t a loser. Also McCall sucks balls at playing just about anything. How can he be so bad at Halo? More important how can you even win with how much he sucks. Do you cheat for him?”

Stiles stops them before they go into their room, looks conspiratorially to both sides and says, “My awesomeness cancel his suckines out,” he says simply, smugly.

Jackson snorts, “You’re on for a match jerkface.”

They both tumble into the room, lunging at the controls and throwing more and more degrading insults at each other.

It’s kind of how their relationship works. A lot of insults, some push and shove and maybe a little violence, getting on each other’s face and sometimes, like once every blue moon, they have these quiet moments where they talk their shit out and have commiserating bro time. It’s pretty functional so far.

They both roll with the punches.

“I think we should invite Isaac over to play video games,” Stiles muses, sticking his tongue out at the screen.

“I thought your dad told you to stay the hell out of it.”

Stiles huffs, “I’m insulted, really. Since when do I listen to what my dad says? Especially on important shit like this.”

Jackson snorts, “Should’ve figured,” he says while Danny and Scott look mildly curious as to who the hell Isaac is.

Well, turns out Isaac Lahey is a skinny kid with curly blonde hair and the face of a freaking cherub. Stiles wants to roll him in bubble wrap and stuff him with cookies until he throws up.

He also flinches at sudden movements close to him and is very good at making himself look small and getting the fuck out of everyone’s way.

Stiles has a Plan though - and yes the capital P was totally necessary that’s how good this plan is.

Okay, maybe it’s not that good but it basically consists of his little ragtag pack of borderline criminal teenagers sitting close to Isaac in class and at lunch, in practice making sure no one goes too hard on him and slowly making Isaac warm up to them.

Scott seems to be the most successful with that, but then again who can resist Scott McCall’s trademark Sunshine Puppy Smile of Happiness and Joy (patent pending)? No one, that’s who.

They all sit at Boyd’s table as well. He thinks they made quite a bit progress with Boyd. Really, all the boy needs is some company and for people to pay attention, to _notice_ him and he’s good to roll.

Their first conversation went kind of like this:

“Hey, Boyd is it okay if we sit here?”

Confused silence.

“Great man!”

Annoyed silence, one single eyebrow raised.

They all sat down.

Awkward silence before the group breaks into conversation. Stiles trying to slowly coach Boyd into conversation. He ends up making a quip about the piece of crap jeep he drives. Boyd says, “Have you seen the piece of crap bus I take?”

And then Stiles just beamed at him, “Right! That must be hard. Not very sanitary. I’ll pick you up and give you a ride over. It’s on my way, anyway.”

“You don’t even know where I live,” he says clearly unimpressed. Stiles is starting to think that unimpressed is just Boyd’s state of existing.

“You should tell me then,” he encourages, “otherwise I’ll just knock on every door of Beacon Hills until I find your house.”

Stiles looks at him a little threateningly, like he does plan to do so. Something in his expression must convince Boyd because he reluctantly gives Stiles his address.

Later, when Isaac and him are bros, he offers his services to him too. Mostly because having the pressure of the Sheriff’s kid picking your abused kid up every day to go to school could possibly make you less abusing.

Stiles is pleased when Isaac and Boyd just accept Stiles’ aggressive adoption of them. He even bakes them cookies and everything.

Isaac starts looking at him like he won Mom Award of the Year and perking up like a little poodle every time Stiles even mentions cooking.

Somehow, Isaac and Boyd compliment the spaces left in their group and it feels good. He likes having people to worry over. He’s a worrier, okay. He thinks it’s genetic or something.

Must be, because he remembers his mom, all fierce and brave, picking up strays (not puppies or cats although there were those too, but actual teenagers) every now and then and doing her best to straighten them up, feed them a good meal and send them home with rainbows shooting out of their eyeballs.

Stiles is happy and content with his little group.

That is until one Erica Reyes catches his attention.

She always dresses in baggy clothes and looks extremely uncomfortable in them, like they fit badly on her very soul.

Erica only comes to his attention because some douche was harassing her and she absolutely destroyed them with a sharp tongue and a condescending tone, just before she started shaking slightly.

He thinks she and Lydia should never meet. Or maybe they shouldn’t. The world would not be safe, far from it, but Stiles likes a little danger and it’s not like anything ever happens in Beacon Hills so he goes over and tries to strike up conversation. At first Erica seems a little shocked that he’s even talking to her, but she soon gets over it.

She blushes a little and stutters and _then_ she makes this completely lewd comment and Stiles bursts out laughing. He likes Erica.

Lydia is passing by when he’s talking to her. She eyes Erica up and down and the blonde girl flinches briefly, before trying to straighten up her shoulders a little.

“Are we adopting her too?” she asks matter-of-factly. She doesn’t sound opposed to the idea.

Stiles shrugs.

“If you don’t I will.” Lydia smiles dangerously, “Hi, I’m Lydia Martin, but of course you already know that. You and me are going shopping after school because honey you look as uncomfortable in those clothes as Stiles feels when he has to wear less than three layers.”

“Layering is good. Layering protects the fragile bone and skin,” he quotes, lips quirking upwards.

Erica seems a little shocked. Again.

Well, Lydia Martin and Stiles Stilinski do have that effect on people.

And then she narrows her eyes at Lydia, “I’m not your project,” she edges.

“Of course not,” Lydia immediately dismisses, throwing a strand of hair sassily behind her shoulder and giving Erica a sharp smile, “But our group is running a little too short on girls, don’t you think? You’re tough enough to handle all that testosterone, I can tell. So. You. Me. Shopping.”

Erica nods slowly, still suspicious, “Okay, but you’re paying for lunch,” she affirms and then twists on her heels and walks away.

Lydia and Stiles trade a look, super-secret sibling language that means, “I love her, let’s keep her!”

And they do. Next week of school Erica shows up having turned into the beautiful butterfly of sexual frustration and innuendo that she is and everyone likes her.

He thinks Boyd likes her more and she also seems very taken with the sheer wall of muscle that he is. Although they seem taken for different reasons since Stiles is pretty sure that Boyd is asexual, so Erica’s looks aren’t really a factor for him.

“I call dibs on being the Godfather of any future children any couple in our group may spawn,” he declares, “I’m writing it down in the contract of friendship.”

“You have a contract,” Erica asks, amused.

“Obviously,” Lydia confirms.

Things are good for them. They don’t always get along great. There are little stupid feuds and fights and sometimes two people are so pissed that they’ll have to sit at complete different tables. But it’s still good.

Stiles feels like this group of people right here are the ones he’ll do almost anything for. He decides that these people are his to take care of and so he does.

Erica has a seizure in chemistry class and some jackass tapes it and posts it on Youtube. Erica watches it and doesn’t come to school for three days in a row.

Their little group goes over to keep her company every day after school, sometimes they’ll even stop by before school.

Stiles and Lydia take a look at Erica’s red rimmed eyes and pull Danny and Jackson aside.

Someone hurt someone Stiles cares about and that’s completely unacceptable, so he gets Danny to take the video down and crash the kid’s computer. Danny sends the guy’s browser history to his parents as the little cherry on top of the shit cake this guy’s life is about to become. Jackson intimidates him constantly, Boyd joining in and yeah they know bullying is wrong but honestly someone hurt Erica and if the guy gets castrated with rusty kid’s scissors Stiles will still think it’s not enough.

Stiles and Lydia destroy him socially and they do it subtly. At one point the guy gets shunned so bad in school that he just disappears.

Stiles checks and sees that after his parents saw his browser history – there were some very, very disturbing things there even for Stiles and that’s saying something – they packed him up and sent his ass to military school.

When Erica finally, tentatively comes back to school there’s always someone with her, glaring and daring anyone to say anything.

It’s a known secret that Lydia and Stiles more or less have filth on everyone at school so they’re not to be messed with and that extends to anyone they hung out with.

No one says anything to Erica and she picks herself up and trudges on, sending glares around of her own. Stiles is kind of proud.

Things are calm for a while, until Isaac knocks on Stiles’ door, barely being able to hold himself up and clutching his phone in his hand shakily.

“Is-” he sobs, “is the Sheriff home?”

“Dad!” Stiles calls out, already grabbing Isaac and carefully guiding him to the couch, “Jesus,” he breathes out, seeing the mess that the kid is.

“Dad was in a mood,” Isaac mutters, gaze trained on the floor.

“I’m- shit- I’m getting the first aid kit. Please stay here okay.”

Isaac gives him a rueful smile, “Where else would I go?”

Stiles doesn’t really know what to say, so he keeps his mouth shut and runs upstairs, grabbing the first aid kit. When he gets back downstairs, his Dad is carefully sitting on the armchair, giving Isaac his space and talking to him in his even, calm cop voice.

Isaac nods along, says something in a low, scared tone.

Stiles doesn’t say anything at all, just sets the first aid kit down and takes the stuff he’ll need to patch Isaac up.

They need to take pictures of his injuries first and he can tell Isaac hates it like burning, but he figures that it can’t be worse than actually getting all the bruises and contusions that Isaac is sporting.

He’s gentle and careful not to hurt Isaac more than he already is.

“Do you want me to call Scott?”

“I- I thought I could stay here?” Isaac says unsurely, bites his lip.

“Oh, you are,” Stiles assures him, “The question is: do you want me to call Scott so we can all puppy pile in the guest room?”

Isaac shrugs which in Isaac speak is a yeah please. So Stiles does call Scott who gets there on record time all frantic and worried, sad puppy faced.

They pile up in the guest bedroom and sleep there. Stiles is a tactile person and for some reason Isaac and Scott really are too. So this is the power of friendship and Erica can forget any three way starting like this ever.

The evidence against Isaac’s father is more than enough and the bastard goes to jail. No one really wants to see Isaac end up in some foster home so somehow Mr. Whittemore manages for Stiles’ dad and Scott and Lydia’s moms to all take joint custody of him and Isaac has a room in every house. He prefers staying at Scott’s though because secret crush that everyone knows of except Scott you know.

The first year of high school passes with no hiccups and then on their Sophomore year things take a decidedly unexpected and furry turn.


	2. Season 1: my feet don't glide like they did back then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are we doing this again?” Scott whines.
> 
> “Because adventure Scott! Also you were the only one who agreed to come. The rest of our friends are far more reasonable and just shut the door in my face.”
> 
> Scott sighs the long suffering sigh they teach in How to Be Stiles’ Friend 101. “It’s pretty gross and creepy, dude.”
> 
> “Is not!”
> 
> “You are literally searching for half of a body in the middle of the woods.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **HEADS UP:** This chapter is yet to be betaed. My lovely beta whom I'm doing this for is busy doing school and being all around fantastic, but I didn't want to keep you guys waiting so I edited this at the best of my abillities and sent the file to him for whenever he has time to do it. When he finishes betaing it I'll repost this chapter with all the changes made. There will be a note saying if it has already been betaed or not.
> 
> Title of this chapter taken from [Walking the Dog by FUN.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPLMwI1wabE)

“It’s cold,” Scott whines loudly, shoving his hands deeper into his hoodie.

“Don’t you have, like, latino blood. Isn’t that supposed to keep you nice and caliente?” Stiles throws at him, wiggling his eyebrows.

Scott scrunches up his face. “I think that’s racist.”

Stiles shrugs. Scott obviously doesn’t appreciate him and his sense of humor.

He sweeps his flashlight through the wood’s leave littered ground, searching for the promised dead body.

“Why are we doing this again?” Scott whines.

“Because adventure Scott! Also you were the only one who agreed to come. The rest of our friends are far more reasonable and just shut the door in my face.”

Scott sighs the long suffering sigh they teach in How to Be Stiles’ Friend 101. “It’s pretty gross and creepy, dude.”

“Is not!”

“You are literally searching for half of a body in the middle of the woods.”

“It’s not creepy, Scott,” Stiles informs him. “It’s adventure. Nothing ever happens around here. Besides you can be the Jake to my Finn.”

“Nah, I’m totally Finn. No way I’m the dog, dude.”

Stiles snorts. “If you get to be Batman, I at least get to be Finn.”

“I’m not Batman. I’m Captain America,” Scott says, offended.

“I thought Danny was Captain America.”

“Danny’s-”

Noise comes from somewhere ahead and Stiles shoots an arm out to stop Scott in his tracks. And no he did not just soccer mommed him, because that’s a thing Stiles never does. Ever. Especially not to his dad and poor baby Isaac.

They’re not even in a car, so even if he soccer mommed Scott it wouldn’t count.

“What was that?” Scott says, his breath picking up in pace.

“Let’s check it out,” Stiles says excitedly because finally something’s happening. Halle-fucking-llujah.

He dashes forward, pulls Scott by his shirt behind him, hopping over the small hill as fast as he can without injuring himself. Somewhere along the way he registers Scott has been left behind, he turns to look, squinting at the darkness of the forest.

A loud sound from behind Stiles startles him and stumbles right into his dad and his little army of deputies. _Fantastic._

“Stiles,” the deputy sighs wearily.

Stiles is offended really. They don’t even seem surprised anymore.

“Stiles!” his dad shouts from a couple yards away and Stiles winces.

Oh God, he’s so fucking grounded, he only hopes that Scott gets home okay because he knows that Scott wouldn’t risk getting caught by the Sheriff in the middle of the woods at night. His mother would probably flay him if she ever found out.

The Sheriff grabs Stiles by the arm and pulls him into his patrol car while giving Stiles the third degree. Amazing how parents can multitask like that.

“Now march your butt back home, before I kick you there.”

Stiles makes an outraged noise. “On foot?”

“How did you get here?”

“My Jeep.”

“Then go get that and drive home. And then you can leave your keys in the kitchen table because I’m confiscating it.”

“Not the Jeep dad, come on! I always pick up Boyd, Isaac and Erica, you know that. I can’t just leave them stranded.”

The Sheriff pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes out heavily.

“Fine. Go home. I’ll think of an adequate punishment.”

Stiles salutes, marches back to his Jeep, two deputies flanking him to make sure he gets there and Stiles thinks that’s unnecessary. It’s not like _two_ deputies were necessary. One would be enough really.

Stiles gets in his Jeep and closes the door with a flourish, receiving very unimpressed and done expressions by both deputies.

He drives off but doesn’t go immediately home, instead making the quick rounds along the preserve trying to see if Scott made it back to the high way, but without any luck.

Damn it. He’s going to owe Scott so much for this.

When he gets home, he climbs up to his room and picks up his phone leaving increasingly panicked voice mails and texts to Scott until he picks up and assures Stiles that he’s okay. Mostly.

“What do you mean mostly? Did you brain yourself on a leave or something?”

“I’m not the klutzy one, Stiles,” Scott bitches. “And I think a wolf bit me?”

“Dude!”

“Right.”

“I don’t think there are wolves in California anymore.”

Scott makes a noise like a puppy who can’t believe you keep stealing its ball. “I’m telling you, Stiles. It was a wolf.”

“Make your mom check it out before it starts using green smelly stuff,” he advises wisely.

“I don’t want to worry her. Also I know first aid.”

“You’re a dumbass,” Stiles informs him. “And if that thing still hurts tomorrow I’m calling Erica’s mom to check it.”

“Yes, _mom_.”

“Damn right I’m your mother, show me some respect and get your butt in bed. First day of school tomorrow, Scotty! The gang gets back together!”

“Please don’t call us that,” Scott begs. “There ain’t nobody fresher than my motherfucking clique, Scott,” he tells him matter-of-factly and then proceeding to hung up. Phones are amazing. Stiles gets to have the last world and walk away unscathed.

He let himself fall to the pillows, sighing up at the ceiling, something under his skin starting to itch with restlessness. He scratches across his risk, but it doesn’t dispel the feeling.

Stiles closes his eyes and decides whatever it is he’ll have time to look into it tomorrow.

«»

Stiles parks his baby blue Jeep in the school parking lot ten minutes before class is supposed to start, kicking Erica, Boyd and Isaac out of  before they can make more of a mess out of it - seriously who even eats chips for breakfast? Crazy people that’s who! Fucking Boyd.

Scott is already waiting for him by the sidewalk.

Stiles jogs to him and claps a hand on his shoulder, eyes tripping over his body, checking for any visible injuries.

“You don’t look bitten.”

Scott pulls his shirt up to reveal a blood stained bandage covering the side of his torso.

“Dude!”Stiles says a little shocked, poking it with the tips his fingers. He can’t really help himself. If there’s something that Stiles is curious about then you can be sure he’s going to poke it to his little heart’s content.

Scott flinches away and then frowns. “It doesn’t hurt. It should hurt, right?”

He peels off the bandage to reveal smooth skin, completely free of any bite marks.

“It disappeared,” Scott startles.

“Like.Magically? Are you sure you didn’t just snorted some fun mushrooms when you fell?”

Scott frowns at him, confused.

“You can see the blood on it.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Hey McCall, are you stripping for money now?” Jackson calls from somewhere behind him, one arm thrown affectionately over Lydia’s shoulder.

“I have dollar bills,” Erica shouts, pulling Isaac along, Boyd trailing behind them calmly and passively.

Scott flushes and pulls his shirt all the way down, tugging a little self-consciously at the hem.

Stiles throws an arm over Scott’s shoulder and mock glares at the others. “I’m sorry but my sugar bunches doesn’t give free shows. Pay ahead ladies. And men!” he looks pointedly at Isaac, wiggles his eyebrows.

Isaac pushes him out of the way and blushes.

Lydia huffs at all of them, completely done with their shenanigans. “I’m gonna be late for class. Move your asses I have freshmen to scare shitless!”

Stiles thrust a fist in the air and grins. “Keep fighting the good fight, Lyds.”

Lydia flounces her way inside, dragging Jackson along with her. Stiles pats Scott’s butt making his friend yelp and throw him a glare before rushing inside to. Boyd looks bored and Isaac mildly jealous.

“Aww, Isaac you can pat his butt too if you want. Maybe squeeze it a little. Remember,” he clears his throat and starts singing off-key, “ _there’s nothing wrong, with a little bump and grind_.”

“You’re an ass, Stilinski!” he informs him, walking away.

“Yeah, but not the ass you want,” Stiles shouts after him.

Erica high fives him and giggles a little.

He grins at her. Offers her his arm. “Shall we?”

“You’re so sweet on me,” she coos, linking their arms together and dragging him inside.

«»

To say that Stiles maybe gets a little paranoid about the whole disappearing wound thing would be a little bit of an understatement.

So maybe he tries to skip lunch in lieu of researching in the school library. That, of course, doesn’t go well because at least two people in his group - Jackson with the threats and Isaac with the puppy eyes - come to drag his ass back to the cafeteria and socialize.

So he does socialize and joke and applaud Lydia for the sheer amount of girls already looking jealously at her, some boys too while both genders (and possibly some out of the gender binary) fall all over themselves for her attention.

They have lacrosse practice after school, Jackson, Boyd, Danny and Stiles lobbing balls at each other in the name of sports before the coach calls them into a huddle and spews something that’s probably supposed to be inspirational about making first line.

Stiles isn’t really worried. He’ll sit on the bench most of the season like he actual doesn’t mind doing.

Scott though, Scott is _committed_ to make first line this year. He’s in a whole ‘a whole new me’ trip and who is Stiles to mess with that.

So he sits and watches and his jaw absolutely drops because what Scott is doing is _impossible_. It couldn’t be done by anyone.

His brain starts working overtime and his fingers itch for a keyboard to type, bright red strings connecting all the pieces of information he has.

He vouches to go straight home and look into it.

«»

After practice, he doesn’t get a chance to continue his research given that Scott lost his inhaler when he was frolicking about in the woods and as his friend - and responsible person for s presence in the woods in the first place - Stiles goes and helps him look for it.

His brain doesn’t stop running, jumping to conclusions and somehow he ends up at the glaringly obvious answer.

Which, which can’t really be, because werewolves aren’t _real_. They’re not a thing that exist.

It’s probably nothing, but still he turns to Scott and tells him about it, passes it as a joke.

Scott completely dismisses it as per usual.

Stiles howls and Scott pushes him, tells him to stop being a goofball and help him find the inhaler.

Stiles sighs, and looks down at where Scott is brushing leaves aside, muttering about how he’s so _sure_ it was right here that he had lost it.

“You can’t be here. This is private property,” someone calls out, startling them. Something in Stiles’ core stands at attention, the voice sounding painfully familiar.

The man in front of them is all broad everything with angry eyebrows, gorgeous eyes and bunny teeth. His ears are adorable for some reason and wait- _wait._ Because there is no way this can be. There’s no-

Stiles almost chokes with the realization. “Derek Hale,” he says, unbelievably happy because he remembers Derek when they were young. He remembers the crush he had on him. Maybe at such a young age was more of a hero worship thing than anything else, but still he remembers Derek. How could he not remember Derek.

Derek looks grumpier, sadder, angrier.

Stiles can’t really fault him for that. He also looks surprised that Stiles knows who he is. He squint/glares suspiciously at him, his nostrils flaring for a second before his eyes widen almost dramatically.

“Stiles,” he says quietly, like he can’t really believe it.

Stiles beams. “Yeah, you remember me!”

“Of course.” Derek says solemnly like it means something. Good to know that the Hales are still frustrating and weird.

“Didn’t you have a cr-” Stiles socks Scott in the stomach before he can continue that sentence and then hisses and shakes his hand.

“What the heck dude! Are your abs suddenly made of steel?!”

Scott prods at his stomach and then gives Stiles the smuggest grin. What an idiot. Stiles can’t help but shake his head fondly at him.

“We were looking for Scotty’s inhaler,” he explains. “We really didn’t mean to trespass.”

Derek pulls a face that makes him look like he’s in pain. “That’s-” he rolls his shoulders uncomfortably and finishes his half sentence, “okay.”

“Oh good. Because my dad is the Sheriff and I’m already so grounded. I don’t need him to leave me sulking in the tank for three hours.”

Derek frowns at him, does another complicated thing with his face.

Stiles off-handedly hopes that he’ll figure the secret Hale eyebrow language. He also hopes Derek will hang around long enough for him to learn it (or re-learn it depending on how you look at it).

“Have you seen it?” Scott is asking.

Derek huffs almost threateningly before taking an inhaler out of his pocket and throwing it to Scott,his leather jacket riding up with the motion and Stiles catches a glimpse of that flimsy excuse of a bracelet he hadn’t thought about for so long. It’s still holding onto Derek’s wrist, seeming in as much a good condition as when Stiles clumsily had made them with his too uncoordinated hands.

“Hey,” he calls out, not really thinking about the next words that are going to come out of his mouth, but not regretting them when they do. “Do you wanna come over? Catch up?”

Derek blinks at him, frowns a little harder before his frown lessens - again, complicated things with his face - and his eyebrows do a little indecision dance before he settles in a nod.

Stiles doesn’t really think about what he does next, but then again it doesn’t seem like he’s thinking much right now. It’s like he’s high on Derek Hale’s face. It’s a legitimate thing, ask people with eyes who are not blind.

Derek walks over to them and when he’s close enough Stiles grabs onto his arm, which seems to make Derek freeze in shock for a beat before he seems to shake himself out of whatever that was and allowing Stiles to tug him along, talking excitedly about what he’s been up with to, leaving Scott to follow behind.

Whatever, Scott is still his best bro, but he hasn’t actually seen Derek Hale in _ages_ , in literal years and in all honesty he’s feeling a little confused and a lot worried and maybe also a good deal of happy that he’s back.

So if that means he’s going to babble and maybe play twenty questions and make some fricking pancakes because Derek looks like he needs them then so be it.

«»

Derek Hale is different, but Stiles figures that he’s bound to be. After all, Stiles lost his mother and even with an incredible support system to fall back on, it almost broke him. Derek lost his entire family and after he went with Laura to New York, the only person he had to fall back on was Laura and that was not right.

He can’t even begin to imagine what it would’ve been like for him to have absolutely no one level-headed enough, conscious enough to take care of them and constantly pull them out of their spiraling wells of misery. He figures that whatever would’ve happened would be bad.

He figures that he’d look just as lost and angry and scared as Derek looks now.

Way back when - which was really not that long ago, just six years - Derek was quiet, but he was happy. Always had this curve to the edges of his lips that tilted them upwards almost in a smirk, used to laugh with his whole body, head thrown back and bunny teeth peeking out. He was also the slightest bit of an asshole, but the sweet kind. The kind that liked to rile up his little siblings and cousins and get on Uncle Peter’s last nerve.

Derek’s been sitting at his table for almost an hour now and Stiles has yet to see the hint of a smile. It makes him sad. Unbearably sad, because Derek, even though he was older than him, was always considered one of his bestest friends.

“I shouldn’t stay long,” Derek says.

Stiles pushes the plate of pancakes he made (they were Derek’s favorite breakfast food) towards him gently.

“Okay, you’ll eat first right?”

Derek nods, picks up his fork.

It’s the third time Derek said he shouldn’t stay long and all three times he hasn’t moved a muscle to actually leave. Stiles figures that _should_ is more a _I-don_ _’t-want-to-but-I-should-because-of-reasons._ So he just keeps pushing coffee and food towards Derek, asking him questions carefully like Derek’s made of fragile, brittle bone and if Stiles presses down too hard he’ll break.

Derek doesn’t really talk much. If he can answer monosyllabically he will. If he has to actual structure a sentence he always looks like he’s being submitted to some kind of special torture.

“Are you going to visit Peter?” Stiles asks quietly.

Derek shrugs.

“I go there sometimes,” he confesses softly. “Once a month at least. I entertained the idea of giving him flowers, but I feel like if I ever did, Peter would just wake up and make some gross comment, so I don’t.”

Derek tenses, but doesn’t say anything, just stares intensely at Stiles.

“I used to take flowers to Meredith, a girl that was in the hospital bed next to him. I talked a bit with her. Both of them really. Made sure they didn’t go mad. Or that Peter didn’t haunt the poor girl with his creepy uncle skills.”

“Why?”

Stiles frowns, confused. “Why what?”

Derek semi-glares at him like Stiles is plotting evilly to make him say more than one word at the time. “Why did you visit him?”

“Oh.” Well this is awkward. Stiles rubs the back of his neck and drops his gaze, mumbles in the hopes Derek doesn’t understand him. “You were gone.”

Derek’s Eyebrows - have you seen those things they’re majestic, they most assuredly deserve a capital E - sprint up his forehead in surprise. “Me?”

Stiles fidgets. “And Laura.” He pauses, clears his throat awkwardly and tries for a teasing smile. “I always liked you Hales. Must be your animal magnetism or something.”

Derek chokes on his pancakes; Stiles claps him in the back worriedly - if there is even a way to worriedly slap someone in the back - until Derek can breathe again.

“Dude, are you okay?”

“Don’t call me dude,” he snaps.

Stiles holds up his hands in defense. “Yeah okay. Sorry. _Dude._ ”

Derek bares his teeth at him and Stiles can’t help to think that he’s adorable.

The front door rattles open and Stiles beams. “Dad, we have visitors!” he calls out, effectively stopping Derek, who was already getting up to bolt out the door.

“What do you mean visitors? We have a bunch of quasi-delinquents that practically live here. Unless the queen stopped for a cuppa we don’t have visitors.”

The Sheriff walks into the kitchen and stops, looking at Derek a little surprised and disbelieving.

“Derek Hale,” he starts wonderingly.

Derek’s already up, back straight and appearing to have an excuse on the tip of his tongue when his dad pulls him in for a hug and squeezes.

“It’s good to see you again, son.” Dad steps back, hands still clutching at Derek’s shoulders and looking him up and down. “I hope Stiles hasn’t been giving you too much of a headache.”

“Hey!” Stiles says, offended. “I am a delight!”

The Sheriff looks at him completely unimpressed. “No one who denies their own father bacon is a delight.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “Just for that we’re having salad for dinner.”

Dad looks at Derek with a sigh that clearly states ‘ _Do you see what I have to put up with?_ ’

Stiles swears he sees the corners of Derek’s mouth quirk up for a millisecond there.

“That’s too bad, I was planning on inviting Derek over for dinner, but now there is no way I’m subjecting a growing boy like Derek to _salad._ ”

Stiles narrows his eyes at him. “You play dirty, old man.”

“Not as dirty as you, o’ fruit of my loins.”

Stiles gags; Derek snorts.

“Gross. Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call me old man.”

“Deal.”

They shake on it.

Stiles peers at Derek. “You’re staying for dinner, right? Since Dad invited you. I can make steak or something.”

“Derek’s staying.” The sheriff says firmly. Of course he does. There’s steak involved. “You wouldn’t deny a poor man his steak would you Derek?” The sheriff quirks an eyebrow, completely mock serious.

Derek seems conflicted between wanting to punch a Derek shaped hole through the wall so he can flee the scene and laughing at begrudging acceptance.

He sets his jaw determinately. “No, Sir, I would not.”

Stiles almost coos at him, calling his dad ‘Sir’ and everything.

The Sheriff claps Derek’s shoulder happily. “Great then! Why don’t you go sit down on the couch while I have a quick chat with Stiles?”

Derek’s eyes dart warily back and forward between the Stilinskis before he goes do as he’s told.

As soon as Derek disappears around the corner his dad looks at him pointedly.“ Do we need to have talk about this?”

Stiles frowns. “Derek staying for dinner? I thought that’s what you wanted. You can’t take it back now. Look at him! He’s like a lost puppy.”

Something thuds against the couch in the living room loud enough to be heard all the way from the kitchen.Stiles peeks around his father, frowning at the sound.

“No. Not about that. About Derek Hale being back and decidedly being older than you.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Stiles is genuinely confused, which doesn’t happen very often yes, but he can’t seem to grasp what his dad is trying to get at here.

The Sheriff sighs like he can’t believe Stiles is actually making him say it. “Stiles, I remember how sweet you were on that boy when you were younger-”

“I was not-”

“Please, you looked up at him like he hung the moon every night just for you.”

Something loud thuds to the floor in the living room and they hear quiet cussing.

Stiles’ cheeks heat up.

“It’s not like that. He’s just- He came back.” Stiles fails to explain.

His dad presses his lips together. “Son. Do you remember what happened when he left?”

Stiles turns around. “We’re not talking about this,” he states, opening the freezer and taking out three steaks to cook.

“Stiles!”

“No, I’m vetoing this conversation.”

“And I’m un-vetoing it.”

“Oh, come on! We created the veto for this, you can’t just un-veto something.”

His dad seems thoroughly unimpressed with just about a everything coming out of Stiles’ mouth. It’d be a surprise if he weren’t, really.

“I just don’t want you to not talk for two entire days and then start obsessively visiting Peter Hale and reading him crime novels.”

Stiles huffs. “I’m not ten anymore. And we’re not having this conversation with him sitting right next to us.”

“My question is this: what’ll happen to you when he leaves again?”

Stiles sets his shoulders, raises his head in defiance. “He’s my friend. I haven’t seen him in six years and he looks sad and right now I want to do something nice for him. I’ll deal. And the situation is completely different. Before I was still mourning the Hales and mom and everything. Did I have a case of hero worship going with Derek Hale? Yeah, I had. Did I grew out of it? Yup.Just like I grew out of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phase.”

“You still have the dolls.”

Stiles glares. “They’re action figures and we both know it.”

“Fine,” his dad sighs out. “Just be careful. And I hope I don’t need to give you the sex talk.” something crashes in the living room. “It was traumatizing for all of us the first time around.”

“Yeah, giving the sex talk to my band of ‘quasi-delinquents’ all at once wasn’t maybe the best of ideas.”

The Sheriff shudders, his eyes glazing over in terror.

They were asking for it really, trying to give Stiles and Erica the sex talk while they were both in the same room. Along with the rest of, like the Mrs. McCall likes to call them, Stiles’ pack of strays.

He thinks it’s hilarious. The others look put out. Especially Jackson who bitches endlessly, but always cowers before Mrs. McCall. She’s terrifying. All women Stiles knows are.

The Sheriff sighs again.

Stiles wonders if there’s a quota of sighs you can let you during your life and how his dad, being his dad, hasn’t run out yet.

“I’m going to see if Derek didn’t break a vase and keep him company. Holler if you need help.”

“’Kay,” Stiles agrees easily, glad that that conversation is over and done with.

Stiles makes dinner and commands all of them to sit down and eat it as civilly as possible.

Derek looks a little out of place, all dark colors in Stiles’ brightly lit kitchen. He looks uncomfortable and he looks a little spooked, but he stays and eats when he’s done doing that he helps his dad with the dishes before excusing himself to leave.

A dozen or more times during dinner he opens his mouth like he’s about to say something but he never does.

Stiles doesn’t hold it against him. In all honesty having Derek back is beyond weird, because they don’t know each other, not really. Not like they used to.

Stiles isn’t an impressionable kid anymore and Derek isn’t a careless teenager. So it’s different and it’s stupid to expect for Derek to keep smiling and help Stiles with his history homework like he used to. They aren’t who they used to anymore.

After dinner Stiles bids his father goodnight, leaving him on the couch looking a little worried with a fifth of whiskey to keep him company.

He climbs up to his room and decides that sitting down at his desk and researching the magically disappearing bite mark is in his best interest.

It’s a dead end. Everything he reads leads back to some bogus supernatural websites and werewolves and other supernatural beasts of the sort whom are, obviously, not real.

Of course it’d be awesome if they were, but Stiles is an evidence kind of guy and without actually seeing it he won’t believe it.

He never expects to get slapped with the facts across the face the next day at school, when Scott suddenly becomes professional gymnast levels of good at lacrosse and a pretty girl with a healthy those of innocence and danger balanced in her eyes sits with them.

“Who’s this?” he asks, looking the girl over.

“Allison Argent. She’s new,” Lydia supplies with a dangerous smile, the kind of smile that tells him if he touches her new sparkly toy something of his will start hurting.

Scott is making moon eyes at Allison, drooling a little bit while the others are a little wary of her, but that’s to be expected. Boyd, Erica and Isaac grew to be weirdly possessive of them.

Jackson and Danny never had the same problem.

Jackson looks interested and yes Stiles has to admit that she is pretty and Danny looks friendly as ever, a kind smile on his face as he makes polite conversation

“I hope it’s okay I’m sitting here?” she asks and turns to Stiles when she does so, like Stiles has any power over who sits at their table. Like Stiles has any power over Lydia Martin.

Stiles is a little suspicious of her. He doesn’t know her yet, so he can’t like her.

(Shut up. Isaac, Boyd and Erica were like strays he adopted from the side of the road they don’t even count.

This girl looks more than capable of handling herself. It’s totally different.)

“If Lydia says it’s okay,” he doesn’t smile at her but he doesn’t want to be rude, so he quirks his lips and finger guns at her awkwardly.

Erica sits in front of Allison but on Stiles’ side of the table. Isaac sits on his other side. It takes a minute or two for Stiles to realize that they’re flanking him and takes a moment to feel a deep sense of happiness that his friends like him enough they’re taking strategic positions if defense from a blitz attack is needed.

This is why Stiles enforces summer paintball, you know. He bumps his shoulder against Isaac in acknowledgment and passes his fruit over to Erica’s tray.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure Scott is about to jump out the window and swim to France just to bring you back some flowers and maybe a baguette so,” he grins, winks at Scott who looks- okay, yeah, pretty close to growling.

When all’s said and done, Stiles kind of likes Allison. She’s terrifying and she’s sweet and she has a quick wit to her, something dangerous lingering in the corner of her eyes, the tilt of her mouth and the flex of her fingers.

Stiles figures they all have a little danger in them, though. When Scott makes first line and plays better than Jackson though, that’s when his day turns weird and his brain takes a turn for the paranoid.

Scott runs around for hours without a single asthma attack and then he does _back flips_. What the fuck ever?! His best friend, the asthmatic kid that dislocated a shoulder in gym once does _back flips_ and front flips like he’s a trained gymnast.

As soon as practice is out Stiles is bolting to his house, demanding for Jackson to take care of Isaac’s and Boyd’s ride home because he’s got important matters to take care of.

His research binge lasts for four hours and by then Stiles is pretty sure he knows too much about werewolves and not enough at the same time. He feels like he’s just ate a spoonful of Lucky Charms except only the marshmallow bits are true in the middle of all the bullshit the internet spews.

Adjusting his worldview to include werewolves doesn’t admittedly take more than ten minutes and a little break down because werewolves before he gets really freaking excited because dude! Werewolves! How can you not be excited by magical creatures of the night.

Except for the bit where they kind of maul and eat your liver. Yeah. Stiles doesn’t like that bit at all, so he hurriedly calls Scott, remembering him saying something taking Allison to Lydia’s party. And shitfuck, he’s so going to kill a bunch of innocent, horny teenagers.

He ends up calling Scott in a hurry, scrambling for his phone and punching the numbers in, urging Scott to come over urgently. With _urgency_! Because this isn’t something that happens every day. This isn’t something that you tell someone over the phone.

When Scott actually gets there and Stiles spews his WEREWOLVES OHMYGOD spiel he gets mad. He doesn’t believe in Stiles. He calls him jealous he tells him to go take his meds.

And shit if that doesn’t cut deep. Not deeper than the claw marks Scott leaves on his favorite chair -- seriously, Scott -- okay maybe a little deeper than that.

Scott storms off to go to that fucking party, trampling over some of the research papers spread all over Stiles’ floor.

Stiles stands there, in the middle of his fallen research, not knowing what to do. It turns out he doesn’t need to figure it out because Derek elegantly crashes through his open window and ends in a low crouch on the floor, eyes scanning the room before he straightens and saying, “Shit!”

Derek stands there, in the middle of his room, in all his broody glory.

Stiles blinks at him. Once. Twice. Says dispassionately, “You’re a werewolf too aren’t you.” And then when Derek just stares, “Holy shit, dude! You’re a werewolf? _Oh my God.”_

Derek looks like he’s bracing himself for a blow.

“So many things make sense now!” he exclaims. Because they do.All the low growling and smelling and touching when they were kids and the neck grabbing. Ohmygod he’s been unknowingly submitting to a werewolf.

“You’re- okay with this?”

“Sure it’s awesome,” he bounces on the balls of his feet a little excited because Derek Hale is a freaking werewolf. No wonder little Stiles had a crush – ahem, hero worship – on him. “Wait.” He remembers. “Two questions. One, did you bite Scott? And two, will you help him?”

“That’s it? Those are all the questions you have?” Derek sounds a little disbelieving, which hello totally not the time for that. Scott needs help, Derek can have his internal crisis later.

Stiles huffs. “Believe me, I have so many questions. These are the important ones right now.”

Derek considers him for a moment before answering and Stiles is just happy he’s actually talking. Using words instead of just kind of grunting.

“No and yes.”

Or not so many words. You know, silence is gold or whatever else.

“Do you know where Scott went?”

“Lydia’s party, I can dri-” He’s neatly cut off by Derek launching himself out of the window and running on all fours down the street.

That just looks counterproductive, he’d run faster on two legs.

“Shit,” Stiles mutters under his breath, when he realizes he basically just pitched two werewolves against each other.

He tramples his way down the stairs, throwing himself into his Jeep and driving below the speed limit towards Lydia’s “let’s instigate fear and awe of Lydia Martin on everyone in high school” party.

It’s a complex thing.

When he arrives the party is in full swing, people drunkenly stumbling about, and steering clear of Lydia’s main group. There are a lot of people in the pool, some having brought their swimsuits to take a little evening swim and others having fallen in and not really giving two shits about it anymore.

As soon as Stiles steps foot inside he’s almost ran over by Scott who’s looking a little dazed and a lot out of control.

“Hey, Scott, bro. Are you okay? Come on, let’s take you home,” he mutters, gingerly looping one of Scott’s arms over his shoulder, wary of the caws -- CLAWS OHMYGOD -- that are sprouting from where his nails should be and dragging him out of the door.

Idiot heavy werewolf going out on a full moon, it’s like he _wants_ to kill someone.

As soon as they’re outside Scott forcefully pushes him away. “Stay away from me.”

“Scott-”

Scott runs off, blessedly on two legs. _Goddamn_ , is the four legged running stupid. Stiles will have to have a chat with Derek about how that makes him lose all of his cool points.

“Shit,” he curses, running back towards his Jeep.

“Stiles have you seen-” Allison starts asking.

“Sorry no time,” he excuses himself, throwing the door of his Jeep open, wincing when it makes a complaining sound..

He turns the key in the ignition, prays to higher gods that may be for his Jeep to start on the first try. It does. Stiles makes a mental note to build a little shrine to some god or other.

He feels a little shitty for leaving Allison there, alone and with no explanation as to why her date ditched her.

Stiles looks in the rearview mirror to see Derek giving her a winning, trusting smile -- something in Stiles’ chest constricts to see how fake those became on Derek’s face -- and pointing back to his Camaro.

She’s in good hands then.

Stiles drives over to Scott’s house first, because Scott is way predictable like that.

If the scratch marks on one of the support beams – Ms. McCall is going to be _pissed_ in the morning – is anything to go by Stiles is right forever and Scott as been here. Still is here, hopefully.

Stiles quickly lets himself in with the copy of the house’s key and trots up the stairs, slamming his fist into Scott’s bedroom door, thanking his lucky for the fact that Melissa isn’t home to see her son like this.

She keeps a bat under her bed for a reason okay, that woman has enough nerve to face Godzilla and _win_ with that thing.

“Scott, come on! Are you okay?”

“Stiles.” Scott sounds exasperated. “Get out, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” Stiles guarantees, believing it one hundred and ten percent, his mind selectively forgetting that his best friend almost put him through a wall not three hours ago.

“Scott, come on. Derek can help.”

“What’s Derek got to do with this,” his best friend growls. Wow this werewolf thing is really coming to him.

“Derek’s a werewolf too. He seems to have more control than you. He can help.”

“I don’t need his help,” Scott bites out.

Stiles sighs, tries the doorknob only to notice that something is jamming the door. Probably Scott with his bone headed… head.

“Stop being dumb. You can hurt someone. You could’ve hurt Lydia or Isaac or Danny. No one wants to hurt Danny. Danny is awesome,” Stiles tries.

“Allison,” Scott says sounding panicked. “Did I hurt Allison?”

Stiles has to take a minute to calm himself and not just march into Melissa’s room, get her bat and beat her son over the head with it because _really_ he’s more worried about some girl he just met than his friends.

“No, Derek took her home.”

Silence.Absolute and complete silence from the other side of the door.

“Scott?”

Stiles tries the doorknob again, practically falling on his face into the room when he’s no longer met with resistance.

“Scott!”

Stile sweeps the room quickly, seeing only the window open and the curtains fluttering gently in the breeze like this is an angsty suspenseful wannabe b horror short.

“Shit,” he breathes out.

Fucking werewolves making him run around.

In retrospect, telling Scott that Derek took Allison home might not have been the wisest of decisions.

He decides that the best thing he could do is pass by the Argents, and if Scott is not there just drive around for a bit until he finds the furry morons.

(Stiles can already tell he’s going to have a field day every day with these jokes.)

Allison, turns out, lives in a truly impressive house. It’s so enormous it probably has tunnels hidden underneath it, maybe even a sex-torture dungeon or something of the likes.

He knocks on the door and barely a full minute later is greeted by a scary as all hell - and not in the awesome kind like most of the women in Stiles’ lives seem to be, but actual _my balls just retracted into my body_ scary - woman with hair cut militarily short almost and eyes that could set entire families on fire.

“Hi,” he waves awkwardly, tries a grin. “I was wondering if Allison is home?”

She squints suspiciously at him. “And who are you?”

“A friend. From school. Hi there. My name is Stiles. Stilinski. Like the Sheriff. I’m his kid. Totally a good influence you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Allison’s presumed mom twists her mouth distastefully at Stiles, but turns her head and calls out for her daughter, who appears on the top of the stairs looking mildly pissed and a little sad.

“Stiles?” she seems surprised by his presence. A lot of people often are.

“Hi, is Scott with you?” he chances.

Allison frowns adorably. Stiles can see why Scott was immediately taken by her. They have about the same level of puppy cuteness.

“No,” she says bitterly.

“Oh, see he got sick and had to leave for home, but he felt so bad for leaving you like that that I was afraid he’d do something stupid like try and come here.”

Allison narrows her eyes as if by doing so she could x-ray through Stiles’ bullshit. Ah, good luck with that, his dad has been trying to do just that for about as long as Stiles as known how to talk and with mediocre results.

“Is he okay?”

Stiles shrugs, flails a little. “Yeah, a little asthma ya know.” He grins cheerily. “I’m pretty sure the words ‘she took my breath away’ were involved in there somewhere.”

Allison blushes prettily, but looks more concerned than suspicious.

“It was great chatting with you.” He decides that since Scott isn’t around here he’s probably not going to show up either. Maybe Derek was smart enough to lead him away.

_Of course he was, Derek is the smartest_ , Stiles’ inner eight year old supplies with starry eyes.

Ugh, cases of hero worship are the worst when you grow up.

“I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow then. Sorry for bothering you,” he says, shrugs apologetically at Ms. Argent who is still looking at him like she could scoop out his eyeballs and make cookies with them if she felt so inclined.

Stiles represses a shudder, wiggles his fingers awkwardly at Allison and hightales it the hell out of there.

He decides to drive by the preserve first; does so for about twenty minutes before Derek comes dragging Scott in the middle of the road.

Stiles swerves dangerously, barely missing them.

“Do you have a death wish?” Stiles yells at him, already opening the Jeep doors and helping drag Scott back inside.

“What happened to him?” he questions.

“Hunters.” Derek simply grunts, hoping into the car with them and glaring at Stiles until he starts driving away.

Stiles sets his jaw. “If you think you’re getting away with just telling me that you’re so deluded that you’re in a mental asylum,” Stiles threatens.

Derek stares at him like he’s weird, which, whatever. That’s been established since the tender age of four when Stiles refused to take his sandcastle bucket off his head for over a week.

Scott groans in the back sit, hand clutching at his shoulder.

“What happened to him?” Stiles demands again, hands spasming on the steering wheel as he sneaks glances at Scott through the rearview mirror.

“He’s being a drama queen,” Derek rolls his eyes.

“I was speared. With an arrow! By a crazy, sadistic middle aged man.”

Stiles squawks and swerves a little bit, directing a glare at Derek.

“You’re a ‘wolf,” Derek dismisses like that’s enough.

“Scotty are you okay? Didn’t it heal already?”

“Yeah,” Scott mumbles, rubbing at his shoulder. “Still I have the right to be shocked. It’s not every day that a middle aged man spears you.”

Stiles bites down on his tongue. “I hope both of you appreciate that I’m not turning that into an innuendo in this dire time of crisis,” he tells them seriously.

They both give him twin flat looks.

Stiles isn’t nearly appreciated enough and that pun would’ve been brilliant. The world is less for not having it.

He sighs, sets his eyes on the asphalt ahead of him. “Where to?”

“Not my house,” Scott immediately says. “I can’t chance mom arriving and seeing me like this.

“I don’t have a house,” Derek says simply, all dark and gloom and doom.

“To Chez Stilinski then,” he bobs his head up and down, making a very illegal u-turn and heading towards his part of town.

He foresees a long night ahead.

«»

Stiles seriously questions the good timing in his life, how the adults are always seemingly absent when shit is going down.

His dad is off working a late shift and shouldn’t be home until the wee hours of the morning and Stiles is in his kitchen, stress cooking and with two werewolves sitting at his table.

He guesses it’d be worse if they were vampires. Because Stiles is _not_ Bella Swan. He kicks ass, okay.

Speaking of. “Hey, are vampires real?” he asks, turning to where Derek is broodily leaning against the doorjamb like the little hurricane of uncomprehend manpain he is.

Derek frowns, shrugs one shoulder.

Stiles is a little offended, his question is both valid and relevant, it should warrant _at least_ a dual shoulder shrug.

Scott is sitting at his table, frowning down at it like maybe if he frowns hard enough the table will fix all of his life problems.

“So,” Stiles starts, since neither of angsting werewolves seem willing to even tackle what just happened back there. “Hunters?”

Derek glares at him for a solid two minutes while Stiles flips bacon in the pan and waits him out.

“They’re Argents. Old family of hunters,” he grunts out, unfolding is arms and pulling up a chair to sit himself down. “They think I’m the one killing people so they’re coming after me.”

“Are you?” Scott squints at Derek, clenching his uneven jaw.

Derek looks on the verge of throwing Scott through a wall; Stile decides that it’s time for him to do what he does best: break the tension with his prime… blabber.

“Of course not. Come on, Scott, you know Derek.”

“I don’t,” Scott says sounding put upon. “I know you disappeared for hours to hang around with the Hales.” Derek flinches. “And never invited me.”

Stiles huffs. “Scott, Derek saved baby squirrels. He wouldn’t kill anyone in cold blood. Which, looking back, is hilarious since he’s a werewolf.”

He turns the stove off, dishes the bacon out into plates and sets them on the table.

“Weren’t you supposed to, I dunno, eat them or something?”

Derek just looks at him like he’s hit his head a lot as a child. Which he did, and a couple of those times were even Derek’s fault so _there_.

“I thought we were here to talk about hunters,” he scowls at Stiles, frowning at him with his murder eyebrows of homicide and cute little bunny teeth.

“Right. Bad hunters who want to kill you.”

“Can’t you just talk with them?” Scott asks hopefully.

They both look at Scott with completely unimpressed eyebrows.

(Stiles used to practice his unimpressed eyebrows in the mirror, trying to mimic the trademark Hale stare.)

“Yes, Scott, because they seemed quite interested in having a chat with you, maybe eat some cookies, play some croquet.”

Scott frowns. “They didn’t sound British why would they want to play croquet?”

Stiles snorts inelegantly, and claps Scott on the back. That’s why he likes Scott. He takes Stiles’ biting sarcasm and turns it into clueless innocence.

Scott offers him a puppy lopsided smile and starts shoveling food in his mouth.

Stiles turns back to Derek. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

“Avoid.”

“Because that’s been working out so well for you?”

Derek squints meanly at him. “It was until your buddy Scott decided to go out on a full moon, freshly bitten and without any kind of training.”

Stiles presses his lips together, chews his bacon, considering this. “Fair point.”

“Hey!”

“I did warn you not to go out. You should always listen to me,” Stiles declares imperiously.

“How could I have known that you were right about werewolf?”

“Pay attention Scott: I’m always right.”

“What about that time with the-”

“We don’t talk about that time.”

“You weren’t right then.”

“That was a fluke.”

Scott huffs, seems to give up. Scott: one and a half. Stiles: thirty five.

“Wait.” He snaps his head to Derek. “Did you say Argent?”

Derek clenches his jaw and looks just about ready to murder a room full of puppies.

“As in Allison Argent. As in the girl Scott is trying to woo?” He turns to Scott and tuts. “Of course you’d be dating a werewolf hunter the minute you turned into a werewolf.”

Scott blinks dumbly at him for a second. “My Allison?”

“Yes.”

“But.” His friend looks just like someone just ran over his pet rabbit repeatedly and made him watch. “Her hair smells so nice.”

“Evil people can smell nice Scott. That’s why perfume was invented in the first place.”

“That’s not accurate at all,” Derek mutters from where he’s broodily chewing his bacon.

“Are you telling me that evil people smell evil?”

“I’m telling you that perfume was not invented for evil people not to smell evil.”

Stiles presses his lips together, pretends he doesn’t want to crack a huge grin and be happy that Derek is stringing so many words together.

“There’s no way you can know that.”

Derek opens his mouth to banter back, only to be interrupted by Scott. “Tell me it wasn’t one of the Argents who shot me.”

“Chris Argent,” Derek replies simply, focusing his attention back on his plate and Stiles takes a moment of silence for their lost banter time

“That’s her father.” Stiles winces as he says it. “Not causing a very good impression with the in-laws, buddy.”

Scott gapes, barely suppressing a whimper. “How do you even know that’s her dad?”

“Got Danny to run a background check on Allison as soon as she sat at our table. The fact that her dad deals with weapons makes so much more sense now.”

“We’ve talked about this. That’s not how you make friends.”

“I didn’t want to make friends with her. Lydia wanted. And you want her to ride your poggostick like it’s the 90s again.”

Derek chokes on his bacon while Scott manages to blush and look disgusted at the same time.

Stiles pats him on the back amiably. “Jesus,” Derek mutters.

“We’ve also talked about this. Danny talked about this with you. Stop using gross euphemism for sex. It’s gross.”

Stiles shrugs, completely unapologetic.

“I thought we were talking about hunters and Scott’s lack of control. About that Scotty, good news, Derek’s willing to help you.”

Scott gives Derek an once over, measuring him up. “I don’t want his help. I can manage.”

“He’s been a werewolf for longer than you, Scott. He’s got control down.”

“You don’t even know that!” Scott argues.

Stiles glares mildly at him before turning to Derek. “How long have you been a werewolf?”

“All my life.”

“See, all his li- wait really? Were you born that way? Were the rest of your family werewolves too? Is that why-” Stiles cuts himself off as soon as he sees Derek tense up. “Is that why everyone had an unhealthy preference for rare steak?”

Derek huffs, a little amused and a little annoyed. Stiles congratulates himself for not fucking up with a mental pat on the back.

“Yes, really. Yes I was born this way. Yes. And maybe.”

“Uh. Cool.” Stiles grins. He has so many things to research, questions to ask and memories to revisit. He turns back to Scott. “There’s literally no one better to help you with your control than Derek.”

Scott clenches his jaw at him and gets up, everything in his stance screaming petulant. “I can do this. You’ll help me, I don’t need Derek’s help.”

“Scott,” Derek growls. “You’ll kill someone.”

“You can’t know that,” Scott argues. “I don’t need your help.”

Scott turns and leaves then, throwing a goodbye behind his back and slamming the door, which, _rude_.

Stiles pushes his plate away and lets his head fall on his arms. “He’s going to regret those words so hard, isn’t he?” he mumbles.

Derek makes a general affirmative noise, before Stiles hears his chair scraping back as he gets up. He lifts his head up, blinks up at Derek. “Goin’ already? It’s like you don’t like hanging out with me anymore.”

“You have school. And I should be going,” Derek says states. “Don’t worry about Scott. I’ll make sure to be around and stop him before he actually hurts someone.”

Stiles grins. “Good Samaritan Derek Hale. Creepy Good Samaritan Derek Hale. If my dad arrests you because you’ve been lurking around the highschool, I won’t bail you out.”

Derek’s corners of his mouth tick up. “Liar,” he says simply, before disappearing out the back door.

Stiles drops his head back on his arms.

He knew there had to be some way to explain how Derek always knew when Stiles tried to cheat in Go Fish with him. He never thought werewolves would be the answer though.

«»

Not even a day passes when Scott regrets his words. And when he does, he does it hard.

They’re at practice, the coach having split the team in two and pitching them against each other.

Scott on one side with Danny and Isaac plus some other players while Stiles is on Jackson’s team with Boyd and _Greenberg_. He’s always practicing alongside Greenberg, he’s pretty sure Coach does it on purpose.

Jackson always goes a little rough on pretty much everyone, Isaac being the only exception. In fact, Jackson can be ferociously protective of Isaac. It’s both weird and beautiful to watch.

Scott never goes hard on anyone. He always lacks that killer instinct, getting to the point where he apologizes for tackling someone.

Stiles doesn’t really know what changes that, but he’ll put his money on a cocktail of newly bitten werewolf and Allison in the stands with the rest of their friends, looking at him and cheering for him.

Scott is being rough on pretty much everyone, and since Jackson is on the field, it was bound to happen that he’ll sooner or later go for Scott. When he does though, Scott shoulders Jackson’s legs and flips him over easily, running with the ball towards the goal.

Scott scores; Jackson stays down.

“Shit,” Stiles mutters, dropping his lacrosse stick to the floor and running towards Jackson, pushing the teammates surrounding him away. “Come on, give him some breathing space assholes!”

“Shitfuck, I’m gonna _murder_ McCall,” Jackson threatens, between labored breaths through his teeth.

Stiles places two careful hands on Jackson’s shoulders, keeping him down- “Yeah okay. Tell me what hurts.”

“Back and left leg,” he grits out.

“Shit, okay. Don’t- don’t move.” Stiles glances up sees Scott’s muscles trembling.

Lydia and the rest of them converge on Jackson, worriedly fussing around him. “Someone call an ambulance. It could be a spinal injury.”

“You shouldn’t move him least Scott have pulled an Eric on him and Jackson becoming our own Charles Xavier.”

“Fuckin’ nerd,” Jackson mutters.

“You totally got my reference.”

Scott looks about ready to maul someone. “You guys got this, right? I’m going to see what is Scott’s deal,” he grits out, getting up and power walking towards his best friend.

God, he’s so stupid, running towards a fucking werewolf. His dad has always said he got the self-preservation instincts of a suicide bomber. Stiles dislikes proving his father right as much as any teenager, probably even more so.

As soon as he’s within leaping distance, Scott’s golden gaze settles on him, lips pulling over fangs on a snarl.

“Who’s a good puppy?” Stiles hazards, throws in a whistle which was decidedly the wrong thing to do.

Scott’s shoulders tense up, his body poised to leap. Stiles turns tail and runs towards the locker rooms, looking back every few steps to make sure that Scott is following and not running to the mob of people surrounding Jackson.

Stiles slams through the locker room doors and turns left, losing sight of Scott, while hiding behind a row of lockers, listening intently to the minimal sound.

He hears claws on metal and the floor is tile, which means-

His head jerks up in time to see Scott’s glowing eyes staring at him from the top of a row of lockers, a deep steady growl coming out of his throat.

Stiles holds his hands up in defense, like that will do him any good against claws and fangs.

“Scotty, buddy,” he mutters. “It’s me. You know me, your friend Stiles?”

The growl notches up a few decibels; Stiles stumbles back, trips over a bench.

“You won’t hurt me,” he tries, not completely sure that Scott won’t.

He swallows hard, tries again,”Scott, you know me since kindergarten, man. You won’t hurt me.”

Scott leaps towards him; Stiles flails back and topples over the bench to fall on his butt, barely being able to see a dark shape coming out of nowhere and tackling Scott down.

He blinks, sees Derek Hale holding his best friend by the throat against a wall. Both of them wolfed out and looking menacingly at each other.

Derek roars in Scott’s face.

Stiles dumbly thinks that wolves don’t roar, lions do. Wonders for three seconds if there is such a thing as werelions and decides that with his luck his regular cashier at the grocery store is probably one.

“Look at what you’ve done,” Derek accuses, shaking Scott a bit and forcefully turning his face towards Stiles.

He supposes he makes for a pretty pitiful picture: sprawled out on the floor, eyes most likely as wide as saucers and heart beating irregularly like it’s attempting to come out with a new dubstep hit.

Scott blinks at him, claws stopping their scrambling of Derek’s leather jacket - that was a good jacket, what a waste of death cow skin - and blinking wide regretful eyes down at Stiles. His wolf features start receding slowly.

“Stiles?” he asks, seemingly disoriented.

“Hi, buddy.”

Derek slowly lets go of Scott’s throat, chooses to grab him by the shoulders and shake him a little bit. After what just happened, Stiles figures that shaking a little sense into his friend will only do him good.

“You almost killed your best friend,” Derek growls, his face having smoothed out to his regular handsome self. “Look at what you almost did Scott! You hurt one of your friends and almost killed your best friend. Only because a stupid game got your blood a little pumped and you couldn’t control your wolf.”

“I- I didn’t mean to I d-”

“It doesn’t matter. Murder’s still murder.”

Scott turns his frightened puppy eyes at Derek. “I wouldn’t-”

“You would! You almost _did_.”

Stiles clears his throat, awkwardly gets himself up and dusts himself off. “Dude, you might’ve seriously hurt Jackson,” Stiles tries, approaching them carefully. “I think you should reconsider Derek’s offer.”

“I didn’t mean to- Stiles, you know I didn’t-”

“Yeah I know,” he reassures, eyes fleeting to Derek for the barest second. “But you did. So. You should let Derek help,” he tries to reason.

Scott slumps, goes putty in Derek’s still claw bedazzled hands.

“Okay,” he breathes out painstakingly. “Okay, Derek can help.”

Stiles lets out a heavy breath, relief sighing out of him. “Good, that’s a good call. It’d been better if you’d take it the first time I told you to.”

Scott turns to him, gives him the imploring eyes. “You were right.”

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest, tries really, really hard not to give in to Scott. “Obviously.”

Scott shuffles a little closer to Stiles receiving a warning growl from Derek.

“It’s not like I’m going to maul him,” Scott snaps.

Derek narrows his eyes at him. “Really?” he says flatly.

Scott bares his teeth.

Stiles quickly worms his way between the two of them, hands hovering both their chests to push back if he needs to.

“I think it’s okay now. Scott no longer wants to have Stiles chow for dinner and he’ll train with you. It’s all sunshine and rainbows. Except for Jackson. Shit, Jackson,” he mutters, taking a step to run out the door. Thinks better of it and turns back.

“You stay with Derek and go do some Yoga to calm down your wolfy jumpiness or whatever. I’m checking in on Jackson. You should apologize.”

Scott whines. “But it’s Jackson!”

“But you hurt him.”

Scott ducks his head shamefully. Damn right.

Derek is looking at Stiles with something akin to calculation in his eyes.

“I’m going now,” he tells them both, before doing just so.

«»

Turns out Jackson distended a tendon in his leg and will have to sit out a couple of games, which, of course, has him absolutely fuming and frothing at the mouth.

Lydia is worried, but trying to downplay it for whatever reason.

Stiles never really understood the relationship those two were in. He just knew that involved a lot of athletic sex and some getting on each other’s nerves with cuddling and sweet glances every now and again.

They were kind of made for each other. Both of them having exactly enough bark and bite to keep the other balanced.

Isaac is sad and worried about Jackson, choosing to move his shit to the Whittemore’s while Jackson is recovering. Their house is certainly big enough and since their group is mad at Scott for seriously injuring Jackson, that leaves Isaac with no one to carefully obsess and mother hen over.

Erica laughs at Jackson, and bites down her worry with humor. Boyd is kind of impassive but looking like he _could_ bitchslap some sense into Scott if the need to do so overcame him.

Allison is confused.

She’s new and apparently used to a certain degree of violence, writing it off as friends dicking around. Accidents happen.

She doesn’t know Scott. Kind, I’m-sorry-I-tackled-you Scott. When Scott was a kid and smacked against furniture he’d apologize.To the furniture. It was ridiculous.

“Look,” Erica starts, eyeing her. “I know you’re new here, but we don’t hurt each other. Ever. Not even while playing Lacrosse. And honestly, normally Scott has as much bite as a nerve wrecked Chihuahua. He’ll probably pee in your couch faster than he will bite you.”

Stiles snorts, but nods along. Erica has a point, except now Scott is more abused Rottweiler that will bite your hand off quicker than let you pet him than a peeing Chihuahua.

After visiting Jackson Stiles drives up to the preserve where Derek has taken Scott for their super-secret werewolf bonding time. He really hopes he doesn’t walk in on them sniffing each other’s butts.

“How’s the Disney sequence to getting muscles going? Has anyone started singing yet?” he calls out, hopping off his Jeep and looking at where Derek and Scott are… sitting cross legged across each other a meditating. What.

“You know I was kidding when I told you to go do yoga right?”

“Calming,” Derek breathes out.

“I’m learning how to find my anchor,” Scott opens one eye and grins giddily at Stiles like this is a regular day at the park.

Derek slaps his leg. “Focus.”

Scott glares at him but closes his eyes again and tries again.

“Right. Okay I’ve stopped by to see if you two had killed each other yet. Also to let Scott know that Isaac is staying with the Jackson for a little while.”

“What?” Scott startles. “But we love having Isaac over!”

“You hurt one of the people who helped him get out of an extremely abusive relationship with his father. What do you think would happen?”

Scoot looks miserable. “I am sorry.”

“Yeah you should tell them, when we’re sure you’re not three seconds away from ripping their throats out as a greeting.”

Stiles let himself plop down on the ground with them, crosses his legs and closing his eyes, making loud and obnoxious humming noises.

Derek hits him on the knee. “Shut up,” he demands.

Stiles grins, keeping his eyes closed and shuts up. For a whole new record of five minutes, before his ADHD kicks in and demands his attention to be on pretty much everything else around him.

He gets back up and wonders around, inspecting the fallen Hale house. He still remembers how it used to be, all three stories of it, standing high and proud, filled with laughter and chaos and love.

The structure is collapsing on itself, the stench of smoke and ash and burned flesh clinging to the very structure of it.

Stiles can’t help but to hate it now.

He shuffles around, immediately stumbling over the root of some flower and falling on his hands and knees.

Spluttering he gets up and takes a hold of it, tugging it up with the intent of ripping it off the ground and throwing it away into some dark corner where it couldn’t be a potential life hazard.

He grips it and starts tugging and tugging just to unravel more and more root or whatever strange thing that was.

He frowns and follows it around starting to walk in a spiral, piling what he already tugged off under his arm.

When he reaches what he supposes the middle of the spiral he has to tug harder to get it to rip free.

“Don’t!” Derek growls, lurching forward, but it’s too late. It’s always too late, Stiles feels.

He tugs it free and the ground loosens under his feet, just enough for a faint human shape to appear in the dirt.

“What?” he asks, reaching over a hand to uncover it. But this time Derek is faster, tackling Stiles to the ground and away from the shallow grave.

“What the fuck,” he hears Scott shout from somewhere behind them.

Derek makes this threatening, hurt noise low in his throat.

“Derek,” Stiles starts, trying to calm down from the scare, trying to not think that there’s a body inches away from him. “Derek who’s that?”

Derek’s face crumples up, he grits his teeth valiantly.

Stiles’ breathing quickens. “Derek,” his voice shakes as he says the words. He doesn’t want to. It’s been enough. They’ve been through enough. “Where’s Laura?”

Derek whimpers, hunches his shoulders and drops his forehead on Stiles’ shoulders.

“No.” Stiles shoves him off. “No, no, no!”  He scrambles backwards, putting as much distance from him and the body as he can.

Oh God, he’s going to be sick.

“That’s not- that’s not fair!” His eyes dart to where Scott is crouching next to the grave. To Laura.

He’s going to throw up.

“Don’t-” Derek growls at Scott, just as his friend reaches a hand and wipes dirt off of her face and shit. Laura’s dead eyes stare at him, her face paler than he’s ever seen it.

Stiles turns and throws up everything he’s ever eaten. Tears sting his eyes even before the taste of bile comes to his mouth.

“H-how?” he chokes out.

God, he still remembers Laura, pale and tear streaked, trying to be strong for her little brother. Remembers her better with her flowy dark hair, sharp cheekbones and sharper wit, putting Derek on headlocks and constantly taking jabs at him.Laura showing white teeth under her ruby red lips as she laughs at Stiles.Laura being beautiful and strong and lady of her own nose, bossing everyone around mere seconds after she’d known them.

“The Alpha that bit Scott,” Derek grinds out. He sounds mad, he sounds beyond mad; raging. He also sounds like a scared lost little boy.

Stiles wants to reach for him, keep him somewhere where death can’t reach.

“I’m sorry,” he says low and earnest. He thinks there were very few times he’s meant it like this.

Derek bows his head, a quiet nod and then turns tail and goes into the woods.

Stiles considers going after him, but doesn’t. Stays firmly in place and tries to breathe through everything, tries toavoid looking down at where Laura is.

“Let’s go,” he mumbles, passes his car keys to Scott. No matter what anyone says, he can be responsible. He can acknowledge when he’s in no state to drive.

Stiles gets home and goes straight to bed, pulls the covers over his head and slams his eyes shut tight, pretends that grief didn’t start tasting a little bit like ash and dirt in his mouth.

«»

For the next two weeks, Stiles develops a careful routine.

Wake up, go to school, go to practice, go to Derek’s, be home to make his dad dinner. Rinse and Repeat.

Sometimes he’ll skip going to Derek’s to hang out with his friends, even if Jackson is still milking his injury for all its worth even though he’s better now.

Isaac is still hanging around the Whittemores. Jackson’s parents are out of town for two weeks, leaving their son’s care to the house maid and not deeming his injury important enough to come back for.

Stiles wants to knock some sense into them. But because he can’t he’ll settle for stress baking Jackson sweets and force feed them to him over Jackson’s complaints about his greek statue physique.

He also has the duty of keeping Scott calm, not allowing his control to slip too much around people. He does so by avoiding conflict with his flailing arms and putting some yoga appropriate songs in Scott’s iPod.

He finds some sort of balance, adjust his world to every little new thing that was thrown at him.

His life almost seems right, normal again. Stiles feels like that perhaps, maybe this werewolf thing doesn’t have to upset the balance he carefully constructed to himself.

That immediately shatters one day when Coach announces that they have a big game coming up and he expects Scott to co-lead the team to victory.

Scott gets excited -- not dangerously so -- up until the moment Derek tells him he can’t play the game. There will be too much stimulation to his new senses. He doesn’t have enough control. His anchor isn’t stable or reliable. He needs more anchors, because he’s young and foolish and leaning on a girl he barely knows.

Scott gets mad -- dangerously so -- only short of wolfing out on Derek. He does walk out though. Which is dumb, since Stiles was the one to drive him up here, so he’ll have to actually walk home.

Stiles sighs long and suffering. “Bad things are gonna happen aren’t they?”

Derek only aggressively exhales at him, nostrils flaring. That’s as good as a nod. Stiles is steadily learning how to attune to post-major-trauma!Derek speak. He thinks he’s doing okay.

“I’ll try talking to him.”

“I’ll be close by,” Derek promises.

It’s plain to see that Derek doesn’t trust Scott -- Stiles is not even sure if Derek trusts him -- and that distrust makes Scott not trust Derek right back. Scott’s fluctuating moods do nothing to acquire Derek’s trust either.

It’s neither of their fault and both of their fault at the same time.

Stiles picks up Scott a couple of miles down the road, looks at him straight in the eye and uses his best serious voice.

“You shouldn’t do the game,” he starts.

Scott huffs. “You too? I thought you had my back, Stiles.”

“I do.” Stiles grips the wheel, clenching his jaw because this is not fair to him. “You know I do. But-there’s hunters running around and a crazy homicidal Alpha. I’m just saying, if your control isn’t good enough you shouldn’t take risks. What if you hurt someone? What if you hurt Isaac or Lydia? You already hurt Jackson.”

Scott’s jaw does a complicated thing. “I apologized for that. And I can do this! Especially if Allison is there.”

Stiles tolls his eyes. “Yes, Scott. Make the girl you’ve just met and have a boner for, who incidentally is the daughter of an old hardcore hunter family be your anchor. Why not? Things are bound to go well if you keep on doing that.”

Scott doesn’t answer, looks out of the window petulantly.

“I’m being serious here, Scott.”

“So am I! And if you had a little more trust in me, and stopped doubting me maybe I could really do it.”

“I trust you with _my life_. Don’t even.”

“Yeah it’d be nice for you to show it then.”

They’re both quiet the rest of the drive to drop Scott off at his house.

It’s useless.

Scott will always want to prove himself and go against any order a male figure in power gives him. It’s like talking to a wall. Worse than that, because a wall won’t look at you like you’ve greatly disappointed it for not trusting it with stupid things. You know what to expect from walls, and that is to hold your house up and protect you. Stiles feels like walls are underappreciated. He loves walls. They’re dependable, predictable, do what their supposed to.

Stiles aims to drive home, he really does, but then Lydia calls him, tells him to meet him at her house and it’s not like he can say no.

No one says no to Lydia Martin.

Well, he does. And Jackson in very rare occasions does as well. Mostly though, Stiles treats her like the twin sister he never had.

Besides happy Lydia means happy Jackson and happy Jackson means no annoying Jackson which makes everyone happy.

Lydia receives him at the door with a calculating look and a freshly manicured hand gripping his forearm and tugging him inside.

“Nice to see you to, Lyds. What do I owe the pleasure of being called to do your biding, your Highness?” he quirks an eyebrow.

Lydia’s mouth tilts up. Since they were little she always perked up when he called her your Highness or Princess or any variant of it.

“Let’s talk about Derek Hale,” she says.

“I have a better idea: let’s not talk about Derek Hale.” Stiles tries to bolt out the door. Lydia stops him in his tracks with sharp nails digging into his forearm and dragging him inside with surprise strength.

“He’s back and you’ve been hanging around him. With Scott.Without me. Why?”

“It’s complicated. And I can’t tell you why,” Stiles mutters. He won’t even bother lying to her. Lydia would just see right through him. She always does.

“Are you dating him?”

Stiles flails. “What? No!”

Lydia squints suspiciously. “Don’t lie to me,” she demands.

Stiles holds his hands up, palms to her, as if calming something wild. “I’m not,” he tells her.

Lydia presses her lips together.

“Why can’t you tell me.” It’s not a question. It’s a demand for information.

“It’s not my thing to tell.”

She sighs, sounding disappointed and put upon.

“If you were in trouble you’d tell me, right?”

Stiles grins at her. “Of course. You’re the one who’s going to help me orchestrate my way out of prison when I get arrested.”

She bobs her head. “I still have the plans we made when we were eleven.”

“Of course you do,” he says fondly, stepping closer and kissing her on the forehead. “Don’t worry about me. Everything’s okay. Promise.”

Lydia is looking at him a little suspicious, but trusting. She holds up her pinky, gives him a challenging look.

“Do you?”

Stiles hooks his pinky around hers and shakes on it. “I do.”

“Good then. I’m trusting you, Stilinski.”

“You always do, Martin.”

Lydia gives him that _you_ _’re a dork and I love you_ smile. It’s his favorite, he thinks.

“Now that we’ve established that, do you want to watch angry British men yelling at home cooks?”

The tension in Stiles’ shoulders immediately drains away. “Please,” he breathes out.

This, he thinks, is why Lydia Martin is his favorite.

«»

The day of the game rolls around and Stiles is _not_ ready for it, not at all.

Scott decided to stop spending his sessions with Derek to hang out with Allison and “solidify his anchor” or whatever the hell it is he thinks he’s doing.

Things are only made worse when Erica sets her tray down in front of Stiles’ and looks at him like she’s trying to look into his soul.

“So, what’s your sugar daddy’s name?” she asks casually.

Stiles chokes on his poor excuse of mashed potatoes.

His father kept telling him that his love for potatoes would bring his death. He should’ve expected it to come with a side of Erica Reyes.

“I don’t have a sugar daddy. Do you think I’d be wearing this if I had?” he tries to divert, tugging at his flannel.

Don’t get him wrong, he loves his flannel and people need to stop dissing it but it always works as a distraction somehow.

“You could be wearing satin panties for all I know.”

Scott and Jackson makes disgusted faces; Danny leans forward, suddenly interested.

“Please stop talking,” Isaac begs, cheeks pinking up. “It’s like hearing about my mother having sex.”

“I’m not your mother,” Stiles reminds him.

“You’re all of our mother,” Boyd states. No one argues with Boyd because Boyd is a font of knowledge and calm.

Erica huffs. “Shut up, Lahey. I want to know more about Stiles and his pink satin panties.”

“I’m not wearing panties, Erica.”

“Not right now you’re not,” Lydia mutters, gives him a clever grin.

Erica practically squees in joy; Scott turns to him like someone just told him Santa works at a strip club when he’s not delivering presents to little children around the world.

He’d like to revise his statement: Lydia is definitely not his favorite anymore.

“Anyways come on, spill about the hot broody secret boyfriend. Who’s he and is he any good with his hands? He has nice hands. And shoulder blades.”

“Shoulder blades? Is that a thing women find attractive?” Isaac asks.

“Yes,” Danny, Stiles and both Lydia and Erica chorus.

“Shoulder blades let you know that God is real,” Jackson nods along; everyone’s head snaps to him. “Or so I’ve hear Danny say.”

Stiles snorts. “Please Jacks, you don’t need to hide your boner for me. I’d totally have a quickie we’d both regret in the supply closet with you,” he winks.

Jackson throws an apple at his head, “I don’t know why I hang out with you.”

“Shut up, you love me.”

Erica kicks his leg under the table. He glares at her. “Are you trying to permanently injure me before a big game?”

“Stop changing the subject and tell me about hot leather dude.”

“There’s nothing to tell about hot leather dude.”

“Stiles!”

“Erica!”

“Derek Hale,” Lydia supplies inspecting her nails. “Stiles had the biggest crush on him since he was born.”

“I had _not_. Shut up.”

“Had too,” Jackson and Scott mutter together.

Stiles turns his glare up to murderous serial killer. “I hate all of you.”

Isaac inches a little closer to him. “Except Isaac and Boyd. They’re not annoying.”

“You’re one to talk about annoying,” Jackson snorts.

Stiles picks the apple up and throws it back at Jackson’s head. He catches it midair and takes a challenging bite out of it, smirking his best douchebag grin.

“Stiles,” Erica whines. “Tell me!”

“There’s nothing to tell! He’s my friend so I hang out with him like I hang out with you.”

Erica doesn’t look convinced. “Why does Scott hang out with him, then?”

“Yes, Erica you have caught us. We actually have secret threesomes. Ask Scott how good Derek is with his hands.”

Scott gags and looks a little green; Erica kicks him again under the table and pouts a little at him. “Just know that I will find out and when I do I will want the privilege to watch both of you making out.”

“Your voyeuristic inclinations are worrying,” he informs her.

Everyone nods along.

Erica takes a bite out of her apple and shrugs like she can’t be bothered.

«»

Beacon Hills is winning, mostly thanks to Scott and Boyd. Scott scoring goals and Boyd working defense -- not many can go against that wall of bricks and come out on top.

Stiles is in the bench keeping Jackson company and trying not to hit him upside the head or brain himself with his lacrosse stick, since Jackson keeps making snide little comments and criticizing every single thing Scott does.

He’s a little butt hurt he has to share captainship with Scott and that he won’t be able to play for a little while and it’s beginning to get on Stiles’ nerves.

“Seriously though, what is with the backflips?”

“Maybe Scott suddenly decided that he wants to run away with the circus and is practicing.”

Jackson looks at him like he’s an idiot. Stiles is used to it, just shrugs at him and keeps chewing on the strings of the hoodie he’s got over his shoulder.

Maybe he’s a little nervous, but then again his werewolf friend is out there playing a game with the very real possibility of wolfing out and killing someone.

Even if he’s seen Derek loitering about, lurking at the edges of the field with his hands shoved in his pockets -- Stiles should get him some gloves, it’s chilly outside, do werewolves get chilly or are they like Twilight werewolves, he should ask -- and a heavy, apprehensive frown on his face, eyes tracking Scott as his friend runs about up and downthe lacrosse field easily.

Surprisingly enough, the game goes more or less okay. Scott’s a little rougher than he’d normally be, but there’s yet to be anyone shedding blood so Stiles is counting this as a win.

The game is almost over so he starts relaxing some, thinking that _maybe_ Scott will be able to do this without wolfing out and murdering most of the teenage population of Beacon Hills.

Obviously that’s when things go to shit.

Scott tackles someone with a little more brute force than necessary and scores a goal, almost breaking the net.

Stiles is up on his feet a cheer strangling in his throat when he realizes there’s something off about Scott. It’s in the way his chest is heaving a little too heavily, muscles bunching around his Jersey as if he wants to burst through it Hulk style and go SMASH! on the unsuspecting citizens of Beacon Hills.

Stiles catches a flash of glowing yellow eyes.

The referee signals the end of the game and Scott drops his lacrosse stick, wiping his gloves off and making a run for the locker rooms as the fans of Beacon Hills High School flood the field to congratulate the winners.

Stiles jumps up, ready to follow Scott and try to calm him down. From the corner of his eye he sees Derek moving to do the same and then he catches a glimpse of Allison, already ahead of both of them and entering the locker rooms. “Where did McCall go in such a hurry?” Jackson glares.

“Dunno, I’m going to see what’s wrong with him,” Stiles mutters, pats Jackson on the shoulder before he’s off, weaving through the crowd and trying to make it to the lockerrooms before something tragic happens.

God, why does it have to always be the locker rooms? Is it the smell of dirty socks and stale sweat that deals Scott’s inner wolf in or what? Stiles really doesn’t understand.

He’s almost there when he bumps into the marble wall that is Derek Hale’s body, not toppling over on his butt only because of two strong hands grip him by the shoulders and help him stay on his feet.

Erica’s right, those are nice hands.

“Scott?” Stiles asks a little frantic, peering over Derek’s shoulder.

“Making out with Allison,” Derek supplies calmly. “His wolf seems to have settled down, I don’t think neither of them is in immediate danger.”

Stiles blows out a relieved breath. “Oh good. I really didn’t want my best friend to turn into werewolf ground meat.”

Derek quirks the corner of his lips.

“Hey, the group of us are going out for victory pizza, wanna come with?”

“That’s not a good idea,” Derek tells him. ”Besides, you wouldn’t want your friend Erica to think I really was your sugar daddy, would you?” he gives him a shit eating grin.

Stiles gapes at him.

Derek turns around and leaves, disappearing between the crowd because he’s the type of guy that likes to get the upper hand on a conversation and then backflip out of a window dramatically so he can maintain that upper hand.

“Good to know he’s still an asshole,” Stiles mutters to himself, shaking his head even as a small smile quirks his lips.

God, he missed Derek.

Boyd throws a sweaty gross arm over his shoulders, coming out of nowhere. “If you mess with Lydia’s schedule, she’ll slay both of us,” he informs. “Where’s Scott?”

“Making out with Allison in the locker rooms.”

Boyd twists his nose, like he can’t comprehend such things as someone wanting to suck another person’s tongue.

“Take care of it,” he demands.

Stiles sighs. “People can stop bossing me around any day now.”

“Please,” Erica grins, looping her arm through his and dragging him towards the locker rooms to call Scott and Allison out. “We both know you get off on it.”

Stiles sighs. His _friends_ , he swears.

Erica pokes her head in the locker room. “You both better move your perky little bubble butts outside and come to stuff yourselves full of free pizza with us. If you’re not out in five I’m coming in and recording you with my phone.”

“Stop being a creeper,” Scott calls out, fondly, appearing mere seconds later with Allison by the hand.

Ugh, Stiles totally called it on them being nauseating together.

“Who’s paying for the pizza?” Scott asks, smiling adoringly at Allison.

Stiles is impressed with his friend’s multitasking abilities, he really is.

“I am,” Lydia announces imperiously, dragging Isaac along behind her. “Where’s Jackson?”

They all look around.

Stiles catches sight of Jackson first, standing in the middle of the field, turning a lacrosse glove in his hands curiously.

“Jacks!” he hollers, trying to make himself be heard over the dissipating crowd. Jackson’s head snaps up, looking around until his eyes zero in on them. “Lyds is offering free pizza!”

Jackson rolls his eyes at him. “Stop making a scene, Stilinski.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at him, trying not to be annoyed by the slow pace Jackson sets for himself.

Lydia rolls her pretty eyes and tsks. “Go change so we can go,” she demands, shooing the lacrosse players into the locker room. “And where the hell is Danny?”

.“I’m pretty sure he picked up a player from the other team and is consoling him,” Jackson informs them when he’s close enough not to have to shout.

“Is there anywhere Danny can’t pick someone up?”

“No. Have you seen that smile? It could cure cancer. In fact, Danny’s grandma is a cancer survivor. I bet that’s why,” Stiles informs them.

They all look thoroughly unimpressed with him. Whatever, he’s awesome and they know it.

Lydia makes a shooing motion towards the locker rooms and makes a sweetly threatening expression. “Go!”

They all comply.

No one wants to face the wrath of Lydia Martin. No one.

«»

Stiles wakes up to his phone loudly playing the Scooby Doo theme, which is an extremely unpleasant way of starting your day.

“Scott, this better be important or I will murder you myself,” he threatens.

Scott’s breathing is heavy over the phone. “I think I murdered Allison,” he says in a panic.

Stiles bolts upright in bed. ”What?”

“I was dreaming about Allison and when I woke up there was blood all over my sheets.”

“Shit, okay. Okay don’t worry, maybe it’s like. Deer or rabbit blood or something.”

Scott’s breathing starts to calm down some. “Yeah. Probably.” There’s a pause. “What do you think I did with it?”

“Ate it,” Stiles answers because seriously Scott, what do you think you did with a dead animal while on a wolfy rampage. Not the rain dance, that’s for sure.

“Raw?” Scott says, sounding scandalized.

“No, Scott. You stopped to bake it in a little werewolf oven!”

He can practically feel his best friend bitch facing at him through the phone.

“I’m hanging up now,” he informs Scott before doing just so.

Stiles lets himself fall to his bed, squeezes his eyes shut and groans. Just lays there for a moment.

It’s too early for this kind of supernatural bullshit, but now that he’s up the chances of him actually going back to sleep are slim to none, so he tumbles out of bed and goes about getting ready before waking up Isaac, Boyd and Erica through a series of annoying texts, telling them he’ll be over earlier.

He receives back seven death threats and three castration threats and all of those just from Erica. Boyd replies with a simple neutral “k” and Isaac tells him to piss off and that Jackson will drive him, since he’s still staying over.

When Stiles and his entourage arrive at school, they’re met with flashy sirens and cops and medical help loitering around one of the school buses, which is smeared with blood.

“Oh, shit,” he breathes out.

“Ohmygod,” Erica breathes out. “That looks like a bloodbath.”

“Yeah, hey have either of you talked with Allison today?”

Boyd looks a little intrigued, shakes his head once.

“No. Why?” Erica asks suspiciously.

“No reason,” he mutters, snaking through the crowd of uniforms as he looks for his dad. “Be right back,” he throws over his shoulder, not giving them a chance to answer before he’s jogging towards where his dad is talking to an E.M.T., hands tucked in his belt and a frown wrinkling his forehead.

“Hey, dad. What’s up?” Stiles greets awkwardly, eyes jumping to where the body is being loaded into the back of an ambulance. So still alive. That’s good. Scott will like to know that.

“Stiles, what are you doing here?”

“I go here, remember. Education is a necessity if I want to say no to drugs. That’s what I keep hearing at least.”

His dad shakes his head at him, pressing his lips together. “This is a crime scene. We’ve talked about you invading crime scenes and getting in the way of an investigation haven’t we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles dismisses, he didn’t really pay much attention to that conversation. “I’m just worried, you know. For the well-being of the student body. Should we be concerned about any potential crazy quasi-killers running around?”

The Sheriff seems to consider if he wants to answer him or not. He settles by saying, “No. From what we could see, this was an animal attack. Maybe a mountain lion or something. And no I’m not telling you anything else so you can go and get to class. Stay off of drugs.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Fine. Don’t think I’m not going to bother you for information when we get home.”

“Oh, yay. Can’t wait,” his dad says sarcastically.

People who ask Stiles where he got his attitude from have clearly never met his dad. The man could be king of unimpressed expressions and sarcastic remarks if he really put his mind to it.

Stiles walks away, joining his group of friends that have gathered near the sidewalk.

“So?” Lydia asks expectantly.

“Animal attack,” Stiles says, looking pointedly at where Scott is hanging back. “Mountain lion got the bus driver.”

Lydia snorts. “A mountain lion, that’s what they’re going with?”

Stiles shrugs, edges closer to Scott who is clearly starting to panic.

Lydia opens her mouth to comment, but is cut off by the bell ringing for the first period. She glares in the school’s direction, clearly offended that its bell dared to interrupt her.

“We better get to class,” Stiles edges, ushering them inside. “Let’s mold these young minds into something that will definitely not prepare us enough for our future lives and have us have mental break downs at the tender age of twenty-three.”

Erica snorts. “Aren’t you a ball of sunshine.”

Stiles offers her a grin. “Aww, thanks. I do try my hardest just for you.”

“Dickhead,” Erica snorts.

They move inside, each of them turning different ways to their assigned classrooms, Stiles choosing to stick closer to Scott and send him urgent looks.

“I’m calling Derek after class,” he informs him.

“We don’t need-”

“One person is in the hospital, Scott,” he hisses. “We’re calling Derek and seeing what that was all about.” He tries to inject as much finality into the sentence as he can.

“Fine, but I still think we could do it alone.”

“Probably, but Derek will know what to do faster and better than we ever would.”

Scott twists his nose and fidgets in his chair. “God, I can’t believe you’re still having that hero worship thing going over Derek Hale.”

Stiles glares extra hard. “Shut the hell up and pay attention to class.”

Scott opens his mouth to say something that Stiles will decidedly not like, but is immediately cut off by Allison walking in the room and smiling at him.

“If I’m ever that gross with anyone, please shoot me,” he tells Danny, who’s sitting a couple of desk in front of him and a row to his right.

“Like when you were seven and got Derek Hale to give you piggy back rides everywhere for a day?”

“How do you even-”

“Lydia showed me the pics,” Danny smiles sweetly at him.

“I’m disowning her,” Stiles declares, absolutely not pouting.

The teacher tells them to shut up if they want to get out of school without detention and Stiles’ immediately does so, his teeth clacking together loudly when he shuts his facehole. He has supernatural business to take care of after school, he can’t be held back by such an inconsequential thing as detention.

«»

As class, Stiles whips his phone out and is calling Derek. Turns out Derek already knows about it and that he’ll meet them there after school is out, telling them to sit tight and NOT TOUCH ANYTHING. _Yes, I’m talking to you Stiles. Don’t. Touch._

Stiles is a little wounded, he is. Scott was the one who used to lick tree barks why is Stiles the one who’s being told not to touch. Okay it’s true that he used to lick windows but that’s totally different. Windows are cool and he wanted to see if his tongue touched the other side.

Derek gets there on a sweet Camaro, parking it illegally because he likes to live life on edge like that and scowling towards them, exuding this ‘I will murder you and your descendants for looking at me’ vibe that must have been perfected while he was in New York.

“Did you do this?” he accuses Scott, who obviously immediately looks outraged by such accusations, eyes flashing and growl starting low and reverberating in his throat.

“No!”

Stiles elbows him on the ribs.

Scott huffs angrily. “I don’t know. I was asleep and then I woke up in blood.”

He sounds scared when he says it, like he’s so lost and has no way to find a way out of the maze.

Stiles inches a little closer to him, makes sure they’re shoulders are touching in a silent offer of comfort.

“The Alpha must have a strong hold on you.”

“Like, he can manipulate Scott’s brain?”

He receives a grave nod back.

“Oh, dude. That’s such the bad kind of mindmeld. Borderline noncon. So wrong,” Stiles makes a face at the entire concept of it.

“Why would he make me kill someone?” Scott asks, looking with big puppy eyes at Derek.

“Wolves who kill together are part of a pack. He’s trying to force you into his pack by killing, and since you’re a freshly bit ‘wolf, he has a strong influence on you. Especially this close to a full moon, that’s when the wolf is brought closer to the surface.”

Scott’s eyes go wide with shock. “I tried to kill someone?”

“Only one way to find out,” Derek says dramatically, ripping the fence that leads to the bus parking lot with his claws like he’s slicing through butter.

Stiles wonders where those cutting skills were when his mom made him cut cardboard hearts for his entire class on Valentine’s Day.

They follow Derek inside, trying to be sneaky. Derek just swaggers in front of them, like he’s not the least worried about things like cops.

He guesses that Derek’s super werewolf hearing would have caught them coming from miles away.

The bus full of blood is sitting there, torn apart and looking like something out of a B-rated horror film, its back door completely torn off and bent in ways that can’t be called anything but savage.

“You’ll need to focus on your senses, try to remember what happened.”

“I told you I can’t-” Scott starts.

Derek cuts him off by slapping the back of his head. “Shut up and focus. You haven’t tried this.”

Scott growls at him and snaps his teeth, but obeys. Takes a shuddering breath, chokes on it and then slams his eyes shut.

His claws come out, digging into the seats closest to them as he tilts his head up and his nostrils flare.

Stiles settles by watching Derek watch Scott have his _That_ _’s so Raven_ moment. Derek is looking intensely at his best friend, a little annoyance displayed on the set of his mouth, a lot of worry displayed on his tense shoulders.

Scott breathes out harshly, eyes opening and flaring with supernatural color. “I was trying to help the driver,” he states in relief. “When I realized what he was making me do I tried to help.”

“Of course you did, buddy,” Stiles gives him a tight smile. “Can you catch his scent?”

Scott’s nostrils flare. “Yeah I got it.”

Derek nods in agreement. “The trails must’ve faded out by now, but in case any of us ever catches this scent again we’ll know what to look for.”

Stiles nods along. “Good work, team,” he says cheerily. “Now let’s get to getting the hell out of here before my dad comes over and arrests us.”

They bolt out of there as quickly as they possibly can.

Scott bids his goodbye to go moon over Allison, Derek follows him all the way back home like this is a bad fifties movie and he needs to know leaving a pure maiden such as Stiles to wander about all by his lonesome will be alright.

“You do know I know the path to my house, right?” he teases.

Derek sets his jaw and glares, “I was just making sure you didn’t ram your car into a lamppost on the way over.”

“Please,” Stiles snorts. “We both know you were protecting my virtue.”

Derek doesn’t deny it. His emotions look in pain for a second before he says. “Stiles, this Alpha. He smelled like ash and pain and madness. Just- stay inside and don’t wander alone at night.”

“You were totally protecting my virtue, called it!” he grins before sobering up. “Come on, Der. I’m not that dumb. Besides if I get mauled I’d leave a bunch of border delinquents and my dad. Beacon Hills would implode in three days.”

“And me,” Derek says quietly. “You’d leave me.”

“You were included in the quasi delinquents. Look at you and your psychopath chic look,” he quips, trying to offer Derek a grin to counter the pain on his face- “Come on. Come inside and I’ll feed you before sending you on your way to do your wolfy business.”

“You make it sound like I’m going to go off and pee against a tree.”

“I don’t know what you like to do on your free time Derek Hale and I won’t pretend to know.”

“You’re impossible,” Derek huffs, corners of his lips already twitching up and betraying him.

One day he’ll get Derek to smile like he used to. And when that day comes everything will be glorious.

Stiles ushers Derek inside and sits him in front of the TV as he throws a frozen pizza in the oven to heat up while they both watch bad sci-fi movies.

“I thought you were going to feed me real food,” Derek tells him flatly, eyeing the pizza when it’s presented to him.

Stiles plops back down next to him on the couch.“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he informs.

Derek looks at him for a long moment.”No, I guess they can’t.”

Stiles frowns at him, but decides that it’s far too late for this Hale cryptic bullshit and turns back to the movie playing on TV.

They eat pizza and watch things blow up for a long time. When his dad gets home they’re still both camped out in the living room, eyes intent on the TV, tiles providing a steady stream of snarky commentary.

The Sheriff doesn’t say anything about it, just strolls into the kitchen to grab a slice of pizza. There’s only two left and those are from the fifth pizza Stiles had to heat up.

Derek eats like a small football team of teenage boys and Stiles isn’t far behind.

“What are we watching?” his dad asks, sitting down on his armchair.

“I have no idea, but things keep blowing up for no apparent reason and hunky men keeppretending they don’t have feelings,” Stiles mutters, passing the soda bottle over to Derek so he can drink from it because it’s not like Derek minds sharing the bottle. He apparently has no problems with catching Stiles’ cuties

 

Lydia for example will break your neck if you try to drink from the same bottle as her. Boyd too. It’s weird.

“Hey,” he remembers suddenly, turning to Derek, “Can we- a person with your kind of genetics get sick?”

Stiles’ dad eyes him suspiciously. “Ya know,” Stiles says poking Derek’s bicep.“Engineered super soldiers.”

“I’m Captain America now?”

“Danny is Captain America. And we both know what you are. Say it.”

“No,” Derek grumps.

“Say it. Say it. Say it.”

“Stiles, this isn’t Twilight. I’m not going to say it.”

Stiles sets his face and starts insistently poking Derek on the shoulder because he’s actually a five year old child. “Say it say it say it say it say it say it sa-”

“Fine,” Derek says covering his mouth with a hand and looking three seconds away from ripping Stiles’ vocal chords out.

He steps back and clears his throat before pitching his voice low. “I’m Batman.”

Stiles beams up at him hugely.

«»

Things are tense for the next couple of days. Between school, dealing with his friends asking increasingly invasive questions about Derek and waiting for Scott to snap and apeshit (wolfshit?) on someone, Stiles has is nerves a little on edge.

Scott stops by the hospital a couple of times to check on the bus driver, worried that the man might die, angry that he might’ve helped even the slightest bit in his death. Or maybe angry that he couldn’t save him.

Stiles tags along once, a Josh Grisham novel tucked under his arm and taking a turn to the long care unit of the hospital, going to sit next to Peter to read to him.

Just because Derek is back he doesn’t think he should stop his monthly visit to Peter. Peter was never his favorite Hale, but Stiles thinks that if their family didn’t go up in flames he would have a certain kinship to him, because above all, Peter looked to protect his family.

Of course there was a certain jealousy to him, something that craved the Alpha’s power. Everyone could see it in the way his eyes tracked Talia wherever she went. That jealousy was as clear as the adoring and loyal looks he used to dote on her, on most of his family. Peter fucked up a lot, sometimes royally so but he always looked out for his family, in the best way he could even if the best way he could was often not the most moral.

“Hey, Pete,” Stiles says cheerily, plopping down on a chair and patting Peter Hale’s arm. “Got some light reading here for ya. I can’t stay long. Derek’s back in town,” he tells him, before flipping the book to where he last stopped and starting to read.

As usual Peter doesn’t move even a muscle while he reads, remaining as still as ever. His hair is getting too long. He never styled it like that. He should tell the nurses that.

Peter’s nurse -- a mean looking lady who looks like she spanks middle aged men for a living -- comes into the room with an uptight press to her lips and demands him to get out, declaring that it’s time for Peter’s bath.

Stiles shudders. Well there’s a mental image he could live without.

“Fine, fine. Next time, I’ll bring you a trashy harlequin like the ones you secretly liked to read,” he promises. “And by the way, he’d keep his air shorter and styled with gel like he was competing to be on Douchebag Weekly,” he informs the nurse kindly.

The woman glares at him and he hurries out of there. God, that woman gives him the creeps.

Scott isn’t waiting for him in the lobby like he normally is. Stiles frowns and looks around, spotting Melissa and signaling her over. She quirks an eyebrow at him as if saying “You come here, the distance is the same.”

Stiles goes over and awkwardly leans against the counter.

He’s pretty sure he goes about life awkwardly, in general.

“What do you want, Stiles?”

“I was wondering if you’d seen Scott.”

“He stormed out as soon as he heard that poor driver died.”

Stiles startles. “He died?”

Melissa nods slowly, looking detachedly sad like only a nurse can.

“Do you know where Scott went?”

“Home, I think.”

So definitely not home. “Thanks, Mrs. McCall. Always a pleasure talking with you.”

Melissa shoos him away with a hand and goes back to writing on a chart.

Ah the easy dismissal of Stiles Stilinski’s annoying antics. It keeps happening. And it’s not like he minds, but still. A little rude. It’s okay though, they’re all family here.

It’s a fond dismissal.

He decides to drive over to Derek’s first and it’s so weird that he still thinks of it as being Derek’s although it’s a burned out shell of a house. He idly wonders where Derek is staying since they always seem to find him at the house, wonders if it’s even healthy for him to be hanging out there so much.

Being that close to where your family was slaughtered, being able to probably smell it even after all those years. Yeah, Stiles is going to change the where they have their little rendezvous pretty soon

As soon as he gets there he sees Scott and Derek a little roughed up, dried blood on Scott’s face and gashes in Derek’s shirt. The entire thing looks like a lost cause.

“What the hell happened?” he demands even before he’s out the Jeep.

“Your buddy Scott decided to confront me and lost control. Again,” Derek spits out a low growl.

Scott growls right back, not backing down an inch.

“Confront you about what?”

“Pulling me into this without giving me a choice! That driver _dying_!”

”How in the hell is the driver dying Derek’s fault? That crazy Alpha was the one to maul him to death. No one had the control to do anything about it.”

“I just want my old life back,” Scott fumes.

Stiles sighs. God, being friends with Scott can be a chore.

“Really? You want to go back to be the little asthmatic kid who sits on the bench with the scrawny one with the loud mouth, you want to go back to being single because let me tell you, buddy, as good and princess like as Allison seems to be she only met you after you turned.”

“Allison wouldn’t-” Scott tries to protest.

“How do you know that! You’ve met her for less than a month. This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, Scott. That isn’t even a love story. It’s a tragedy. People die because a teenaged boy couldn’t keep it in his pants. Is that really who you want to be?”

Scott seems to deflate gradually, shoulders finally slumping and looking at the floor guiltily. Stiles feels a little bad.

“Come on, man,” he says stepping forward. “You’re my best friend and this thing you’re doing is only gonna come back to bite you in the ass.”

Scott sighs swaying towards Stiles a little who immediately catches him around the shoulders, pulls him into a hug. “I think it already did. Literally.”

Stiles snorts and gives him a pat on the back.

“Come on, I’ll make you cookies,” Stiles promises. Scott’s a sucker for his cookies. Everyone is.

Scott perks up, “Okay.”

He sees Derek trying to slink off in his peripheral vision. “You too, shiftywolf.”

Derek narrows his eyes and glares like he’s going to argue, but instead he follows them to the Jeep, climbing in the back and leaving Scott to ride shot gun.

Like he said: _everyone_ is a sucker for his cookies.

Scott snuffles and twists his nose. “You smell like hospital.”

Stiles gives him a flat look. “Well, seeing that I was in the hospital that seems natural Scott.”

“Yeah, but you also smell like something else. I can’t- just a trace of it, but the hospital smell and women’s perfume over it is overpowering.”

“You should shower,” Derek offers, twisting his nose in a way that’s totally not completely adorable nope, not at all, not even the little bit.

“That’s it, you’re telling me I stink neither of you is getting cookies.”

Scott actually whines. Stiles is smug for the rest of the drive home.

His dad gets home late at night to find Derek on the armchair and Stiles and Scott draped over each other, Scott and Derek already out for the count and Stiles getting there.

“Kids,” his dad sighs, walking in the kitchen and probably stuffing his mouth with cookies. Stiles is too sleepy to tell him to drop them. Those are Lydia Martin’s cookies his dad is eating, he’ll just sick her on him.

«»

Things after that actually go a little smoother for a couple of weeks, the only difference being Jackson squinting at them like they’ve got the new One Direction album hidden away and he’s trying to figure out where so he can steal it and jam out to British boybands manufactured by the rich bored middle aged men.

Not that there is anything wrong with One Direction, they’re pretty great when Stiles is cooking and wanting to sing something pop-y and mindless.

Scott and Derek are tentative allies, working together to take down the mysterious Alpha.

It’s a little funny and tiring to watch, because they will step on each other’s toes (sometimes literally) while Derek is trying to beat control into Scott’s head and trying to train him to fight in his messy style that’s clearly learned from heat of the moment experience rather than actual training and practiced skill.

He’s about to suggest they take a short break when Derek gets a little too rough again and Scott lashes out to the authority Derek is trying to exert over him.

This is all Raphael ‘my dick is too small so I’m going to be an abusive drinker to compensate’ McCall’s fault.

Really, every evil in the world is his fault. The man almost killed Scott, accident or not and he was a mean drunk. No actual physical violence, it never came to blows, but still. He had a mouth on him.

Once he’d turned that mouth on Stiles and got sucker punched by Stiles’ mom. His mom was the best.

“Hey guys, how’s pawcamp doing?”

They both turn to him confused. Confusion is always better than aggression, so Stiles decides to roll with it.

“Ya know. Like bootcamp, but pawcamp because you’re werewolves and wolves have paws.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Derek huffs, rolling his eyes almost fondly.The best kind of eye rolling if you ask Stiles.

Scott just smiles and shakes his head fondly at him, punching his arm.

“Want snacks any of you?”

He came prepared with distractions so what.

“Stop trying to distract us with food. We were in the middle of something,” Derek growls. The growling seems a permanent fixture. Stiles should work on fixing that.

“Yeah, of almost ripping each other’s throats out. Now I know neither of you like each other but I’d be extremely upset to see any ripped out throats. It’d be disgusting and I would probably have to clean it up. So have a snack, take a break and breathe a little before you go at it again,” he suggests.

Scott doesn’t really need to be told twice, bouncing his way to the Jeep and riffling through Stiles’ backpack.

“And you should really find another place to train,” he informs Derek, pointing at the falling house behind them. “This is not only unsanitary and a safety hazard for-”

“You’re a safety hazard for yourself,” Derek mutters.

“Your face is a safety hazard,” Stiles throws back at him. Derek snorts at him, quirks an oh-really eyebrow.

Stiles is momentarily distracted by how majestic his eyebrows are. He needs to dig through the drawings he did in elementary school and get all the ones that portray Derek’s eyebrows true to form.

“Wait, what was I saying again?”

“My face was a safety hazard.”

“Shut up. I’m conditioned to answer like that. By Scott.Yeah, totally Scott’s fault.”

Scott turns to him, getting his head out of Stiles’ bag with a mouthful of muffin. “I’m not your dog. Stop blaming me.”

“I don’t have a dog to blame.”

“You wanted one,” Derek tells him. “When your parents said no you brought Scott home and asked if he could be your puppy.”

Scott makes an outraged noise, spewing bits of muffin everywhere.

Derek delivers him a shit eating scowl. Stiles didn’t even know those were possible but apparently yes they were.

He changes the subject. “Back to how unsanitary and depressing training here is. I’m serious, Der. This can’t be good for anyone.”

“Good for Scott you mean.”

“Good for you, asshole. Where are you even sleeping? And help me God if you say here or a motel.”

Derek shifts uncomfortably.

“Oh my God,” Stiles says disbelievingly. How can this idiot be _this_ self sacrificing and masochist. It’s ridiculous. “Get an apartment,” he demands “And pack your shit you can stay in our guest room.”

“I don’t-”

“Shut up it wasn’t a question. Now eat some fucking cookies and house train Scott some more.”

“I think that’s speciescist,” Scott tells him, walking back towards them.

“Ugh, stop clipping my wings!”

«»

Derek’s on his way to Stiles’ house, his things packed in the back of his Camaro -- its sad how little he has, it really is -- when he calls Scott.

Derek never calls Scott. Hell, he barely even calls Stiles.

Scott’s eyes immediately go to him, wide and alarmed and he knows shit went down and they’re needed somewhere.

“I think me and Scotty are going,” he tells their friends who’re gathered around a big table at the pizza place and stuffing their faces. Lydia, Allison and Boyd friggin’ worship pizza.

“Already?” Allison asks all wide eyes and frown-y dimples.

“Yeah too much pizza, Scott will drive me home, right Scott?”

Scott bobs his head up and down loyally already getting up from his seat and making it for the door.

“Go,” Lydia dismisses. “And we’ll pretend to believe your lame excuse.”

“Thank you,” he answers, kissing her cheek quickly and bolting out of there..

Scott’s in the driver seat of his car already, key in the ignition and ready to go. Stiles figures that Scott could run there and is grateful that he doesn’t choose to do so, it’d be a little hard for him to keep up.

“Where’s Derek? What’s wrong?”

“He caught the Alpha’s scent. Is chasing him through the highway that leads into town,” Scott says, stepping on the gas.

“Alone?" He almost shouts. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

“Probably,” Scott agrees, making a sharp turn.

“You’re the worst at being reassuring Scott.”

Scott turns off into the warehouse district and they see him. It’s huge and black. A monster of a thing that looks more like bad CGI from a cheap MTV show than actually wolf.

Scott starts growling low in his throat, opens his car door and flings himself out of it.

Stiles flails and makes a grab for the wheel, stumbling and contorting himself onto the driver’s seat and stepping on the gas to try to keep up with the car the Alpha seems to be chasing and with Scott who’s chasing the Alpha.

He can’t see Derek anywhere.

Stiles makes a grab for his phone, pondering calling the cops and getting them on scene to make the supernatural creatures disperse. Then he remembers that his dad is part of the cops and he really can’t have him become an Alpha’s chew toy.

The car the Alpha is chasing swerves to the side and comes to a full stop. A blonde woman hops out, shotgun in hand and shoots it, which is of course when Derek comes running over a corner and right into the line of fire and seriously, it’s like he _wants_  to be shot, what the hell is his problem?!

Stiles dials 911 quickly, rattling quickly the occurrence and where it is, the background noise of the gun going off backing him up; he ends the call without leaving his name.

His dad will probably figure out it was him and he’s going to get grounded. Again.

“Come on!” the woman yells, now shooting towards where Derek is trying to make his escape, Scott a little ways ahead of him.

Stiles swerves the car towards an alleyway, just as sirens announce their presence too loudly down the road.

He kicks the car into park and jumps out. “Scott!” he shouts, relief hitting him like a building collapsing when Scott appears around the corner, carrying Derek who looks like he’s about to stumble face first into death.

“Was he hit?”

“It’s nothing,” Derek grits through his teeth.

“Ohmygod,” Stiles hisses, rushing to him and taking his bloody arm in hand. “We need to get you to the hospital!”

“No,” Derek shakes his head, his breathes coming out heavier. “I need- I need a bullet. It’s- wolfsbane,” he hisses and hunches on himself. “poison. It’ll kill me if it gets to my heart.”

“Shit,” Scott says, adjusting his grip on Derek.

“Scott, put him in the back seat. I’m getting one of those bullets.”

Derek’s hands snags around his wrist. “You are _not_ going in there.”

“What am I supposed to do? Let you _die_.”

“Yes,” Derek bites.

Stiles grits his teeth and jerks his arm free. “Fuck you.”

“Stiles be careful,” Scott says urgently.

“Yeah, sure.”

He runs back towards the street and hopes that the cops got there quickly enough that she didn’t manage to escape.

There’s a police car parked a little behind the black SUV, a police officer has the woman in cuffs and pressed against the side of the car, he’s probably reading her Miranda rights.

Stiles tries to sneak to her car, but of course, as always he has the grace of a bull in a china shop so the officer spots him almost immediately.

“Stiles, what are you doing here?”

Fuck, he’s _so grounded._ He’s beyond grounded, his dad is gonna lock him in jail for this.

“I heard her shooting and called 911,” he swallows. “Scott was in the car with me so I parked in the alleyway to get out of the line of fire.”

He edges towards the SUV.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he says and takes another step back.

“I called the Sheriff, he’ll deal with you in a minute.”

“Right. You better be careful with her Haynes,” he says edgily, tries not to be too affected by how the woman’s eyes are locked on him and dripping with murder. “She was screaming about werewolves. I don’t think she’s all too well in the upstairs department.”

Haynes looks back at the woman and decides that this is a great time to shove her in the back of his cruiser, which is _perfect_ because it gives Stiles enough time to turn and pop the trunk open, grabbing a handful of different bullets and shoving them into his pocket.

“Stiles, you can’t mess with evidence.”

“I just,” he jerks his thumb back towards the SUV. “Saw a glimpse of what she had in the trunk and thought you should check it out.”

He edges towards the side and gives Deputy Haynes ample view of the armory she has in her trunk.

Haynes swears under his breath and reaches for dispatch, calling in something too low for Stiles to hear.

“Hey Haynes, do you think I can go tell Scott this is going to be long?”

“ _Don’t_ run away. We’re going to need your statement.”

“Come on, man. It’s an alleyway. Where would I run to?”

Haynes doesn’t look all that much convinced, but slowly nods once. “Fine, but if you’re not out again in five minutes I’m sending someone to drag you back by the ear.”

“Aye, aye chief,” Stiles salutes a little, and immediately runs back towards the alley.

Scott has Derek sitting on the back seat, looking like he’s about to throw up his liver.

“Did you get it?”

Stiles takes the bullets from his pocket and opens his hand. “I got a bunch of them.”

Derek snags one and unscrews the top.

“I need a lighter,” he grunts.

Stiles looks at Scott who shakes his head, eyes wide with shock and fear.

“Wait this is your mom’s car, right? Right!” He bobs his head and jerks the driver’s door open, reaching under the seat and coming up with a pack of cigarettes, he pops it open and takes out the lighter, passing it quickly to Derek.

He watches, short of wringing his hands in worry, as Derek burns the thing and rubs it in his open wound. Oh god, that’s really not hygienic.

Derek grunts in paint and hisses loudly, body spasming finely as whatever he just did burns the poison out of his veins.

Smoke billows from the wound and Stiles grabs him by the wrist, inspecting the slowly closing wound, until the skin is perfect and smooth again. He runs a thumb through the spot just to be sure.

“Oh thank god,” he mutters and then socks Derek on the arm. “Don’t do that again.”

Derek grunts a rumbling sound, shoulders twitching in the aftershocks of the healing.

“Is he okay?” Scott asks, shifting nervously.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he grunts, getting to his feet and rolling his shoulders like the movement will put the entire event behind his back. “We need to go before the scent trail goes cold.”

“What! You’re _not_ going after that thing,” Stiles tells him.

“It’s killing people. It _killed_ Laura. I’m going after it,” Derek says it such a finality that Stiles can’t really argue with.

“ _Fine_. Walk into your death. See if I care.”

“Fine.”

And then he turns away and jumps into the closest fire escape and onto the roof, running off.

“Sorry,” Scott mutters quickly and runs after him.

“Scott! Scott, don’t you da- _Scott.”_

“Stiles,” he hears Deputy Haynes calling.

Stiles curses and tries to put on his most innocent expression.

“Yeah, coming!”

Stiles comes out of the alleyway just as his father is getting out of his cruiser.

“Stiles!”

“It wasn’t me!” he immediately says. It’s almost trigger response by now. Truth be told that most times it _was_ him that did whatever warrants his father using that tone.

“I swear, I was just driving by and saw her shooting at the building!”

The Sheriff grabs him by the nape of his neck and pulls him away from the few cops going through the SUV.

He stops by the side of the road and crosses his arms over his chest. “Explain.”

“I _told you_. I was just driving by.”

“You were just driving by the warehouse district?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Yes.”

“Why.”

“Derek called for me to pick him up.”

The Sheriff raises his eyebrow. “Where’s the car?”

He points at the alleyway. “I didn’t want to be in the line of fire. Can I go? Derek is waiting for me.”

Derek is an idiot that’s probably going to get killed by an Alpha werewolf and Stiles needs to find him and Scott even if he has to drive through every city of this godforsaken town to find them.

“No. Stiles, you’re a _key witness_.”

“It’s not like she actually injured someone.”

It’s not even _really_ a lie. She did hit Derek, but he healed. There’s no wounds to show for it.

The Sheriff sighs and points him to his cruiser. “Go sit in there and wait for me.”

“But De-“

“ _Wait_ for me.”

Stiles huffs. “Fine.”

He stalks towards the cruiser and messes with the radio, paying close attention to the dispatch calls.

If Derek and Scott are chasing after an Alpha there ought to be a call somewhere.

He doesn’t know how long it takes. Long enough for the cruiser with the woman to drive away and for his father to look increasingly more done with his life.

The dispatch crackles and he hears Denise’s voice announcing a disturbance at the hospital, describing the offenders and shit Stiles needs to go.

Right now.

He considers making a run for the car that’s in the alleyway but his dad is the direct line of sight of it.

He licks his lips.

Oh god he’s going to be the most grounded ever.

Stiles jumps to the driver’s seat and turns the keys in the ignition.

His father’s head snaps to him, shock flashing through his face before his expression turns stormy.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yells, walking in front of the car.

Stiles looks through the window shield but there’s a building directly behind him and he can’t back up into that.

“Dad we need to go. _Right now_.”

“Stiles, get out of the car.”

“Dad there’s fight in the hospital, Melissa could be _hurt.”_

_“_ Stiles. Get out of the goddamn car before I arrest you.”

“Dad, please. Just- trust me on this one. We need to go. Right now!”

Something must show on his face, because his father seems to start taking it more seriously.

“Get off the driver’s seat. I’ll take us there. And you better explain _everything_ to me.”

“Yes,” he nods, scrambling for the passenger’s seat.

His father gets in the car and Stiles had never been so glad there were moments in which the Sheriff just went with Stiles’ gut and didn’t ask any questions.

The Sheriff starts the car and heads out towards the hospital in what is decidedly not a fast enough pace.

The police radio crackles and Denise’ voice reports that they are going to need backup at the hospital, for any patrols available to direct themselves to the scene immediately.

Stiles bites through his nails on the way there, watching as his father turns tenser and tenser until he just curses and flips the siren on, speeding through the calm Beacon Hill streets.

“Whatever this is,” the Sheriff starts, throwing him a look. “I want you to _stay_ in the car. And when I get back I want you to tell me exactly _how_ you’re related to this mess.”

Stiles nods vaguely, not committing to anything because like _hell_ is he going to stay in the car while Derek and Scott are being possibly brutally torn apart in there.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff calls but they’re already there and as soon as the car stops Stiles is bolting out the door and rushing inside, bypassing nurses trying to control the situation and just rushing headfirst in the direction people seem to be running from.

He thinks he hears his father faintly cursing in the background and _shit_ he’s probably going to get smacked for this one. Which was something he never really understood, how parents when ridden with fear sometimes hit their children instead of talking it out.

“You can’t go in there!” he hears a police officer shout and _please_ let none of the deputies be hurt.

He ducks under him and around, bursting through the long care’s unit double doors and skidding to a halt because that’s- _that’s Peter Hale._

Peter Hale who has half of his face burned still, but certainly not as badly as he had when Stiles used to come visit him and read him shitty books.

Peter Hale who taught him how to throw a water balloon perfectly so it would hit his target.

Peter Hale who used to ruffle his hair and pick his side to aggravate Derek.

Peter Hale who’s supposed to be comatose and irresponsive. A vegetable.

Peter Hale who has Derek by the throat, a row of teeth unnaturally sharp lining his open wide mouth and too close to Derek for Stiles to be completely comfortable with.

“Stiles, run,” he hears someone call, mixed with disgusting coughing from somewhere to Peter’s right. He turns to look and sees his best friend on the floor, looking bloodied and beaten, eyes wide and scared.

“What the fuck,” he whispers and then does what’s possibly the single most stupid thing he has ever done in his life. He strides forwards and shouts. “Hey dickbag.” Peter’s head snaps towards him.

“Stiles,” Derek chokes out. “Get out of here.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he mutters, stumbles a step forward when Peter’s face turns to him and his grin twists into something that makes Stiles’ skin crawl.

“Stiles,” Peter purrs and throws Derek clean across the room, his face starts elongating in an unfamiliar gruesome way, turning into a snout.

Peter stalks closer, back hunching forward abnormally as if hit’s about to rip clean off his back, as if he’s going to turn into something _worse_ , as if he can’t help it, barely controlled out, of his mind.

His nostrils flare and Stiles didn’t know that nostrils could flare threateningly but apparently they _can_. He’s not okay with it. Not even a little bit.

“Yes, you’ll do just _fine_.”

His back curves and he lands with his hands on the floor, bones crunching and shifting.

Stiles takes half a step back and then another, disgusted at the sight of it, heart beating wildly in his chest and fear making his skin to go clammy with sweat.

He backs right into his dad who apparently has the worst timing ever.

“What the hell is that?” he demands loudly, but he doesn’t give Stiles enough time to tell him. He just pushes Stiles behind him, takes out his gun and starts shooting.

The bullets don’t seem to be injuring the Alpha and that’s going to become a problem really soon since his father already emptied one clip.

He quickly switches and starts aiming for the head.

Stiles is half frozen behind him, staring in horror at Peter Hale contorting on the floor, snarling viciously, foaming at the mouth.

“Don’t hit Derek,” he shouts over the sound of gunfire because _of course_ Derek is the only one stupid enough to get in the line of fire (for the second time in a day, might he add) and start moving towards Peter.

His father’s gun wavers for a moment when his eyes catch Derek’s face in his beta shift, but his aim stays true.

His second clip is out and Peter is still breathing.

“How do we kill this thing?” he shouts, fully controlled and up to do whatever he needs to in a high stress situation.

Derek answers that for him, leaping forward and slashing Peter’s throat open with one swift move.

They still.

Time freezes in a single moment and Stiles wonders idly why time only preserves the horror but isn’t so gentle when it’s time to recover from it.

Dad’s breathing hard, gun barely lowered.

Scott’s on the floor, wheezing slightly.

Stiles reaches and clings to the back of his dad’s uniform with one hand, eyes trained on Derek.

Derek stands above his uncle, one hand bloody, red staining his cheek from the spray of Peter’s jugular and eyes blazing the same shade.

He’s breathing heavily, irregularly, unhinged.

From all the research Stiles managed to do he knows Alphas are supposed to feel more, their senses all go into overdrive.

Derek’s head slowly turns towards Stiles and his nostrils flare. He doesn’t seem to be able to retract his claws or fangs.

“I’m the Alpha now,” he growls and it’s wrong.

Stiles doesn’t know what’s happening to him but someone needs to put a leash on it before Derek goes out on a rampage and starts biting unsuspecting teens much like his uncle had.

Stiles goes to step around his dad and his stopped.

“I’m not letting you near that thing,” his father hisses, and Stiles tugs his hand.

“It’s just Derek.”

“It’s _not_ just Derek. There’s nothing _just_ about it.”

“Dad just trus-“

“I think I’m done trusting you for the night.”

Stiles goes lax, sighs in defeat and watches his father intently through his lowered eyes. As soon as he slacks his grip Stiles rips his wrist away from the grip, tripping forward and almost smacking into Derek.

He flails wildly for a moment, managing to balance himself just.

Derek’s eyes are locked on his, gaze tracking his every twitch, his every breath.

“Hey there big guy.How you feeling?”

Derek blinks a little. “Stiles.”

“Yeah. You know me. Stiles.Klutzy old Stiles. That’s a nice shade of red you got there,” he comments.

Derek blinks again and the red dims slowly away from his eyes.

“You can’t be here. I could hurt you.”

“Oh yeah,” he sways on the balls of his feet and back down acting as nonchalant as you please. “Easily so. But you wouldn’t.”

“I-“

“You wouldn’t.”

Stiles shuffles a step forward.

Derek growls a little but it’s his old growl, it’s his frustrated growl.

“This was a tough night right. So how about we go out for ice cream or something?”

“Ice cream?”

“I want ice cream,” Scott mumbles from the floor, and Stiles glances over at him long enough to see him sitting up, breathing harshly but slowly recovering.

He’s more worried about the new Alpha in front of him on the knife’s edge of slipping from his control.

“Yeah. Everyone loves ice cream.”

Derek nods and then stops. Scowls.

“You’re an idiot,” he tells Stiles around blunt teeth, gets up and off his uncle and puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder for support, nice blunt nails not even close to touching his skin.

Stiles grips his arm and walks backwards, putting some distance between Derek and the dead man on the floor.

He looks up at him and can’ help the little grin on his face because _Derek’s okay and Scott’s okay and everyone’s okay._

“Would someone mind telling me _what the hell is going on_?” his father half shouts and yup one look at him shows that the shock is already setting in.

Stiles might have to break out the whiskey tonight.

“Werewolves,” he says.

“Werewolves?” the Sheriff says and then he presses his fingers against his temples and shakes his head, “I’m not paid enough for this.”

“I’m not paid at all-“

“Stiles shut up. Just- shut up. Don’t think I’ll forget you kept something this dangerous from me.”

Stiles shuts his mouth with a click.

They stand still while the Sheriff seems to adjust his world view.

“Derek can still stay over right?”Stiles breaks after two full minutes have passed.

The Sheriff lifts his eyes to him. “We’ll deal with that _after_ we figure out what we’re going to tell the police.”

“Dad you are the police.”

The Sheriff selects to ignore that in favor of looking down at the dead body of Peter Hale like it might hold all the answers.

“Can we still get ice cream?” Scott asks, lifting himself up at cost.

Derek and Stiles both go over to help him to his feet.

“Sure thing, buddy,” Stiles promises.

They go for ice cream at eight in the morning exactly when they manage to get the fine deputies and the hospital staff of Beacon Hills off their backs about the whole affair.

Stiles is mildly impressed with the lie his father came up with if he’s honest.

On the other hand he now knows his criminal tendencies don’t come just from his mother’s side.

Also he’s grounded until college.

On the upside though, Derek gets to stay over.

So yay for silver linings or something.

«»

“ _Werewolves_?” his father says for about the sixteenth time, his tone still strongly laced with disbelief, he shakes his head, reaches for the glass of whiskey and takes a drink.

Stiles is allowing two glasses of it, barely filled, before he cuts him off. Just to be on the safe side.

Stiles licks his spoon. “Werewolves,” he confirms yet again. “Do you need Scotty or Derek to do the thing again?”

His dad shakes his head and throws back the rest of the whiskey. “Werewolves.”

“Yup,” Scott confirms this time around a mouthful of ice cream. What? Stiles believes in compensating victories. Positive reinforcement! If they know they’ll get ice cream after they win against some baddie (and something tells me there’ll be a few of them) their chances of actually winning will go way up.

“I should’ve known,” he sighs. “At least you’re not on drugs.”

“You though I was on drugs?” Stiles asks disbelievingly, which okay. Kind of fair.

“For a bit there.”

“Where’s the trust, Dad?”

“Probably in the same place where you’ve been _hiding werewolves_ from me, son.”

Stiles points his spoon at him. “True.”

“And Derek’s here is an Alpha, correct?” he asks switching is gaze towards Derek who is caught in all his grumpy glory, spoonful of ice cream shoved in his mouth.

He slowly slides it out and wow okay that is _not_ a mental picture Stiles needed, thank you very much.

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me John-“

“If I can’t americanize my name-“

“Your name is unamericanizable.”

“And whose _fault_ is that, Janisław?”

His father gives him an unimpressed look.

“Like I said,” he turns back to Derek. “Call me John. I’ve known you since Stiles picked you off the side of the road.”

“I think that’s speciciest,” Scott says, rubbing his face against his shoulder. Again. It’s the fifth time he’s done it now and Stiles thinks it’s kind of weird, especially considering he’s wearing Stiles’ shirt (his was a little on the tattered and torn side).

He dismisses it as a werewolf thing, though.

“Eat your ice cream and call your mother not to worry her, Scott.”

Scott nods dutifully.

“And you- go call Lydia and the rest of your friends. She’s been worried about you, kiddo.”

Stiles sighs and makes a mental note to do it later.

“Hiding this from her isn’t the smartest idea don’t you think.”

He sighs louder. “Hiding things from Lydia Martin is never a good idea.”

“Glad you’re aware of your own mistakes son.”

Stiles huffs and rolls his eyes. “Are we done here? I need a shower and to show Derek to his room before he bolts out of the window and goes to pee in a circle around the house.

His father looks suddenly alarmed.

Derek chokes on his ice cream.

“Would-“

“No,” Derek rushes to deny. “That’s not- _Stiles_ ,” he growls. “I am not a dog. I won’t make a piss circle around your house.”

“Don’t be stupid. Dogs could never make a perfect pee circle.”

He gets a carton of ice cream to the head for that one. _Totally worth it._

«»

Derek is standing at the door of Stiles’ room, looking ready to claw his skin open, dressed in soft pajama pants and a softer looking Henley.

“It’s-“ he shifts uncomfortably and almost imperceptibly. “It’s an Alpha thing. I don’t have a pack. It doesn’t feel right, I-“

Stiles had done some research about this, luckily. That’s what he’s been doing. That’s why he’s still awake at three am even after the day they just had.

“I’ve got you, dude,” he grins, gets up from his chair and strides towards Derek without pause. He thinks if he paused even for a second he would just lose all of his nerve and turn the other way, bolt right out of the window.

“I’m pack right?” he asks and hugs Derek around his middle.

Derek freezes, his entire body going tense and taut, coiled with inaction, before he slowly loosens his muscles. The longer Stiles holds the hug the quicker he untenses until finally he hugs back, arms lose around Stiles and rubbing his cheek over Stiles’ temple, his ear, his cheek.

“Yeah, you’re pack,” he says slowly, like a secret. And then he just hugs a little bit tighter and Stiles won’t break the hug before Derek does, he couldn’t do that to him.

He wonders how long as it been since Derek got a nice warm hug.

He also wonders if he’s going to have stubble burn all over his cheek tomorrow because if yes boy is he screwed.

«»

“Hey, Stiles,” Isaac catches up to him on his way out of school, which is not exactly expected since Stiles got detention today (fuck you Mr. Harris) and everyone else had caught a ride home.

Isaac had stayed behind, apparently, for some reason.

“Yo, what’s up?” he asks, slowing his pace a little and adjusting his backpack strap over his shoulder.

“Do you know what’s up with Scott?”

_Shit_.

“Um- what is _ever_ up with Scott? You know he’s been lovesick for Allison lately. Why? Is, um, is something wrong?”

Isaac shrugs. “Not really, he just. There’s _sounds_ coming from his bedroom sometimes? And he just suddenly became a cuddler.”

“Scott was always a cuddler.”

Isaac nudges him forward so they can walk out of the school and into his Jeep.

“Yeah, but he like- rubs his face and hands all over my neck? Also the sniffing thing. The sniffing thing is just weird.”

Stiles shrugs one shoulder and tries to play it cool. “You know he’s been in a brand new me kick. Maybe he’s trying to be closer to the people he really likes.”

“By sniffing them?”

“Yup,” Stiles says, making sure to pop the ‘p’ because nothing says trust me I’m right like popping letters like bubblegum.

Isaac looks so utterly unimpressed and unconvinced Stiles can’t really find the words for it. He resigns himself to sighing and making a mental note to tell Scott to keep the PDA down from now on.

He’s still not sure just how _wise_ it is to keep the entire werewolf thing from their friends. He guesses not wise at all, but he also saw the kind of danger that had come with getting thrown into this life and he’ll keep his friends safe as long as he can.

Or well, as long as something eventually and inevitably happens that makes them find out.

“Can I sleep over at yours?” Isaac asks, throwing the door open of the Jeep and hopping inside.

“Right, about that,” he winces, starting his Jeep up, “the guest room is kind of unavailable for the foreseeable future.”

“What why? Is some of your family visiting?”

“Kind of?” he gambles.

Isaac pokes him. “Tell me. Tell me, tell me tell me tell me tell me te-“

“Ow, fine! Fine! I’m _driving_ , ohmygod,” Stiles huffs a deep breath. “So, Derek Hale might or might not be staying at my house.”

Isaac punches him in the arm. “Are you serious! Your childhood _crush_ is living at your house.”

Stiles doesn’t blush. He’s not the blushing type. He’s _not_ , shut up!

“He’s not my childhood _crush_. He’s just the guy who helped me with homework.”

Isaac smirks. “Lydia told me once you asked him to be your wife.”

Stiles swerves a little.

“I’m going to throttle Lydia. _No_. I’m going to run over her shoes. All a hundred and twenty three pairs of them.”

Isaac blinks. “That many. Wow.”

“Yeah, have you actually seen her closet? I’m pretty sure one person could _live_ in there.”

They drive in silence for a couple minutes to the sounds of Ed Sheeran telling everyone _don’t_ with his love, before Isaac speaks again.

“Don’t think I’m letting this go. I’m telling _everyone_.”

Stiles side eyes him. “Okay. What do you want? Come on, we both know you love to bribe people, just tell me what you want, you wannabe stylish mafia boss.”

Isaac huffs a laugh at him before grinning slow and measured.

«»

“Don’t ask,” Stiles tells him, taking the third batch of cookies out of the oven.

Derek stands at the entryway to his kitchen almost awkwardly, lips pressed tight in that way that clearly indicates he’s trying _really_ hard not to laugh.

Isaac is balancing on the hind legs of his chair, phone trained on Stiles and a sharp grin on his face because he is _evil_. Pure unfiltered evil.

“Nice tutu,” Derek comments and Stiles puts a hand on his hip and glares at him and he’s sure he must look ridiculous right now with a crown crooked on his head, one of the cheap plastic ones that came with a magic pink wand that had a star at the tip and a big tutu that he can barely tie around his hips.

“Don’t even.”

Derek looks down, one hand over his mouth and rubbing at his chin.

Stiles squints at him for a moment and then grins because Derek might be hiding his smile but he can see where his eyes crinkle at the corners.

It almost makes this worth it.

“Aren’t you gonna introduce me to your friend?” Isaac asks.

“Are you going to put the phone down?”

Isaac pouts but does set his phone on the table.

Stiles swipes it and stops the recording, glaring at Isaac who looks completely unapologetic.

“Isaac this is Derek, Derek this is my friend and current tormentor Isaac.”

Isaac dimples at him and waves. “Hi.”

Derek very slowly raises his eyebrows and then raises his hand in a mockery of a wave. He doesn’t really wave. He literally just sticks his hand up in the air and then lets it fall back then.

“I’m gonna-“ he points behind his back, looking mildly uncomfortable again.

“Sure,” he shoos.

Derek bolts out of the kitchen.

Isaac turns to him. “Charming. I can totally see why you like him.”

He shrugs one shoulder carelessly. “Derek’s not really good with people.”

Isaac _stares_ at him.

“Wow, and you’re defending him too.”

“I defend my friends,” Stiles defends, both hands on his hips, just over his sparkly pink tutu.

Isaac nods. “I just- when we became friends he wasn’t around anymore. So I couldn’t see you fall head over ass.”

“I’m not falling head over ass.”

Isaac laughs and then whistles. “Come here Lassie, little Stiles has fallen to the bottom of the well.”

“What do-“

“The well of _love_ ,” he teases, dragging the ‘o’ obnoxiously.

“I hate you, you’re a terrible friend. I’m letting all the cookies get burned.

Isaac opens his mouth and is stopped short by the Sheriff walking in, a stack of files under one arm.

“Hey kids.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, Sheriff.”

There’s the rustling sounds of his father taking his shoes off, followed by his holster before he moves on to the kitchen.

“Stiles do you think I could talk with you for a minute,” he looks at Isaac. “Alone.”

“Is something wrong?” Isaac asks, glancing at Stiles worriedly and then squinting in suspicion. “Are you sick or something?”

“No?” Stiles frowns over at his father.

“It’s about an on-going investigation. Involving Kate Argent.”

Isaac makes a face. “Police stuff. I’m going upstairs to steal your PS3, warn me when my cookies are ready,” he says, bouncing out of his chair and hopping up the stairs.

“Kate Argent?”

“Wait did you say Argent? Like _Allison Argent_?”

His father throws the files on the table and sags down on a chair.

“Yes, she’s the woman we arrested the other day that was shooting at Derek? Was that what was going on?”

Stiles nods.

“Her name came up. In the Hale fire case. And then I found this.”

The Sheriff flips over a folder and takes out a little slip of paper, sliding it towards Stiles.

He carefully takes it.

_SUPER MEGA IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR DAD_

_Dad I saw a girl with Derek and I don’t like her. She’s super old, like adult old and she’s blond and has brown eyes and she’s tall and I saw a gun on her waistband once. She wears a necklace with a wolf on it. Here’s a picture._

A crude drawing of an emblem with a wolf and whatever the rest is supposed to be follows and then:

_Please help Derek. Something’s bad is gonna happen, I know it because my bones itch._

_P.S. This is Stiles_

“Your mom told me the same thing once, just before she got sick. _My bones itch, John. Something’s not right_.”

Stiles breathes out and feels it rattling in his chest.

“You think- you think she could have anything to do with it?”

His father sits down heavily on a chair, “Yes. After I found out werewolves were a thing I started thinking that _werewolves_ would be able to stop a house fire before it even started. But they didn’t so. Something must be wrong.”

Stiles moves to sit in front of him, leaning forward, “You think arson. And because this was from around the time of the Hale fire, it kind of fits.”

The Sheriff nods his head, “Derek had just lost Paige too.”

“He was vulnerable,” Stiles finishes and lets that sink in.

He was _vulnerable_ and a kid and some _woman_ for whatever reason thought it was the perfect opportunity to slaughter an entire family.

“We have the necklace in evidence,” his father tells him, sliding his phone over.

Stiles takes it and squints at it, “Yeah that’s the one.”

He’s going to throw up.

“Dad. He was underage at the time.”

“I know.”

“She was not-“

“I know.”

“She planned to fuck around with an underage kid so she could slaughter his entire family like- like-“

“I know, son.”

The Sheriff scrubs at the back of his hand, trying to dispel the tension just with that move.

“We need to prove this. We need to-“

“We should talk with Derek about it. I’ll try getting in contact with the insurance investigator that worked on the case and anyone on file.”

Stiles claps his hands together until he feels his bones grinding. He blows out a breath and rolls his shoulders.

Something feels wrong. His bones are starting to itch. That’s- ohgod.

“Dad, is there anything else?”

His father presses his lips in a thin line, and nods slowly, “Kate made bail four hours ago.”

“Dad,” he says carefully, swallows down the panic, “my bones itch.”

«»

“What’s happening?” Isaac worries, chewing through the skin around his nails.

“Derek might be in trouble,” he states, hands clenching on the wheel until it creeks under his grip.

“I could help.”

“No.”

“Stiles I could-“

“No!”

Isaac huffs, “Whatever is going on between you Scott and Derek, you need to tell us. Everyone’s worried about you Stiles. About Scott too, he’s been acting weird.”

Stiles takes a sharp, very illegal turn to Lydia’s house and stops in front of it, “I’ll- I’ll tell you when I’m done with this. Promise.”

Isaac stares at him for a couple of seconds before raising one hand and making an x over his heart with the other.

“Cross your heart.”

Stiles really doesn’t want to bind his words with something as ancient and powerful as cross your heart.

“Cross my heart,” he says solemnly, mimicking Isaac’s moves.

“Good, and whatever you’re doing _be careful_. More than a few of us would be devastated if anything happened to you,” he tells him, before hopping out of the Jeep and dragging his backpack with him.

«»

“He’s fine.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Stiles edges, because _maybe_ Derek is fine. But maybe he’s not and given that he’s neither answering his phone and they’ve been searching for him for more or less five hours there’s a very real possibility _he’s really not fine at all_.

“Stiles,” Scott says, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a born wolf, right. I’m sure he knows better than to let himself be caught by hunters.”

Stiles almost laughs at him.

_Knows better than_.

It happened once. Nothing is keeping it from happening again. Derek was just a _kid_. Fuck, he’s _still_ a kid if we’re getting real here.

“Most hunters don’t go shooting for unsuspecting werewolves in the streets.”

“We were chasing her.”

“We were _chasing_ the Alpha. Who’s dead now. So.”

Stiles takes his phone out of his pocket and throws it at Scott, “Try calling him again.”

«»

It’s been eight hours that they’re looking and Scott called for a break.

It’s been closer to nine since Derek went missing.

His dad had to stop looking to get some sleep before his shift.

They can’t report him missing before 24 hours are up and it’s not like they can just go _hey I have this crazy theory that my werewolf friend is missing and this psychotic bitch took him, how about you help me find him_.

Stiles has been very studiously not freaking out.

«»

Scott is talking about giving up, stopping to sleep when the call comes in. On Scott’s phone.

“Allison? Are you okay? What’s wrong- Al-“ a pause.

Scott’s shoulders tense and he snaps his head to Stiles, eyes wide and mouth open with shock, “Don’t- Allison don’t worry, we’re coming. Me and Stiles.”

“Scott what’s wrong?” he asks, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel and he cruises through the warehouse district.

“No, I believe you. Don’t worry, we’re coming over. Yeah- I’ll stay on the phone with you.”

Scott has turned an interesting shade of greenish white and it’s not doing any wonders for Stiles’ nerves right now.

_“Scott!”_ he snaps.

“Allison,” he swallows, “she says there’s a werewolf in her basement. And her aunt is torturing him. She says it looks like the friend I sometimes hang out with and she’s freaking out about it. Stiles what if she ha-“

“This is not the fucking time, Scott,” he hisses, swerving his wheel and going over the sidewalk in his haste to turn his car around.

He speeds towards the Argent house ready to tear it down if he needs to.

“Get my phone,” he commands, “I need you to do something.”

«»

Allison opens the door for them, bottom lip trembling and tear tracks running down her face.

“It’s a mons-“

“I _do not_ have the time for this,” Stiles dismisses, “Scott look after your girlfriend I’m going to go probably get shot.”

“Stiles wait, you can’t-“

He finds the basement more easily than he was expecting, but then again he’s been playing hot and cold with the itch under his skin, buzzing in his brain to try to find Derek so he just heads for the place that makes it almost unbearable and stealthily (or as stealthily is possible for Stiles) open the door and creep down the stairs.

He’s not sure what he expected, really. Kate manically cackling and twirling her fake moustache as she poked Derek with a sharp stick, probably.

(He’s been going for the best case scenarios here, don’t judge him.)

But he certainly wasn’t expecting Derek tied up to a- a _rack_ like he’s meat, wires going into him and leading to a generator as Kate monologues about werewolves and finding the Alpha, fingers toying with the dials.

Derek is glaring at her, probably thinking about all the ways he can rip her apart with his bare hands, the woman who-

Stiles clenches his jaw and looks around, honestly surprised Kate didn’t spot him yet. The entrance to the basement only allows so much cover.

He spots a gun on a metal table, next to pliers, a hammer and a jar filled with purple dust. He doesn’t want to think about what those are used for, so he makes a grab for the gun, checks the clip, and does what’s possibly the stupidest thing he has ever done ever.

Even stupider than trying to jump over the river that ran through the preserve and that had resulted in his almost drowning if Talia Hale hadn’t been nearby.

“Stop,” he says. “Get away from him.”

Kate looks slowly at him and cocks her eyebrow, then sighs like he’s an unwelcome guest at her debut party.

“Sweetie, we both know you’re not going to shoot me, so put that gun down and let me deal with this animal.”

Stiles thumbs the safety off. “You’re going to step back from that thing and let him go, or I _will_ shoot you.”

She moves her fingers over the dials and Stiles cocks the gun.

He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t-

He looks over at Derek, jerking his chain, fangs dropped and rumbling a low wet growl.

“Stiles what are you doing?”

“Um, making sure you don’t die? What does it look like, I sure as shit am not baking brownies.”

“Don’t be stupid. Get out of here before-“

“Before the cops arrive,” he finishes and looks over at Kate. “Which they will, thanks to an anonymous tip about shouting coming from the Argent house.”

She shrugs, unconcerned. “My brother will send them away.”

“Um, he would, except my dad won’t back down that easily when he knows for a fact his son is inside this house and sent him a distressed message.”

Kate grits her teeth. “Aren’t you a clever little thing,” she says, eyeing the door.

“Oh, stop you’re making me blush,” he deadpans.

Kate stands up and Stiles tracks her with the gun.

“You’re aiming the gun at the wrong person.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“He’s a monster, he’ll ki-“

“ _He_ wasn’t the one who slaughtered an entire family. _He_ didn’t kill human children. That’s on you.”

Kate shrugs. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made. How does it go? ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’ or something?”

She takes a step closer.

Derek growls so loudly it almost shatters glass.

“Stop.”

She takes another. “That gun isn’t loaded,” she smirks.

He shoots a round at her feet and she freezes.

“Looks pretty loaded to me.”

“Oh, I like you,” she grins and takes another step, smaller, less noticeable if Stiles hadn’t been tracking her every twitch. “You could make a _great_ hunter. You’re smart,” she praises. “Good with a gun, apparently. So tell me, why are you acting as the wolf’s little bitch when you could be making him your bitch.”

“Interesting argument,” he says, readjusts his grip on the weapon that his sweaty hands made slippery.

Derek probably can hear how his heart is trying to trip his way out of his throat, how he stinks of fear and anxiety but- but Derek’s chained there with a crazy woman and it’s not like Stiles could just turn his back on this, on him.

His father raised him too well for him to be able to.

“But I’m sixteen,” he starts. “In a high stress situation. Accidents happen,” he shrugs and aims the gun at her stomach. “She reached for the gun,” he says and sees Kate’s eyes turn hard, a little fear spiking into them. “It just went off. I didn’t mean to. It happened so fast.”

“How about this: I’ll let you and your little mutt go and you’ll call your daddy off. We both get to walk away.”

Stiles swallows, readjusts his gun and chances a look at Derek who is dangling free by one wrist and steadily working on his other chain. If he can just keep her occupied-

“Oh sure, let the person who murdered part of my family go _or_ get her arrested for all the shit she did. What a toughie.”

“The police doesn’t have-“

“Don’t they? Because my father is the Sheriff and I can assure you _honey_ , they do.”

Kate grits her teeth, trips her eyes towards the stairs again. Stiles can see how agitated she is getting and that’s not a good thing.

Cornered animals and all that.

He doesn’t even want to think about the irony of that statement at this point, he’s more worried about what Kate might do.

“You’re bluffing,” she edges, taking another step forward.

Stiles readjusts the grip on the gun.

“Am I?”

“Well, in case you’re not, I’m not about to go quietly,” she says and she’s barely done speaking when she lunges for the gun, Stiles only has time to stumble back, finger slipping on the trigger and a shot ringing out.

“Stiles,” Derek shouts, but Stiles can’t pay attention to him, he’s too busy trying to keep the gun from Kate who’s still scrambling for it desperately.

Something wet seeps through the leg of his pants and he has a second of wild fear that he was shot but that makes no _sense_ , the angle would be all wrong.

Kate’s bleeding, he realizes.

She’s bleeding and she’s still desperately trying to reach for the gun, for a way out, _any_ way out.

He throws the gun away and out of reach and Kate makes a high frustrated sound hands snagging around Stiles’ throat and pressing.

Derek’s growl turns into something so vicious it makes something primal in Stiles flinch instinctually.

Theoretically it shouldn’t be hard to get a bleeding woman to stop chocking him but no one tells you just how persistent desperate humans are.

Two things happen almost simultaneously.

The door of the basement burst open and there’s the sickening sound of a body hitting something metallic.

“Beacon Hills Police Department,” he hears his dad shout just as he blinks and suddenly Kate’s hands are gone and Derek is hovering over him worriedly.

Stiles coughs. “I’m fine, I’m _fine_.”

“Stiles,” Derek breathes out, somehow sounding aggravated. He touches his neck carefully, eyes flashing a violent shade of red, muscles tensing up and ready to lunge and Stiles can’t let that happen not when his father and a handful of deputies are crashing into the room.

He snags the back of Derek’s neck and gasps out, “Derek, don’t- don’t-“

Derek’s muscles spasm with inaction and relax in the same second. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath and grits his teeth. “Okay.”

“Stiles!” the Sheriff calls.

“I’m here, I’m fine.”

His father hovers in his field of vision, worry marrying his face but he’s not being Stiles’ father right now, he’s being Sheriff Stilinski, so he calls for an ambulance and lets Derek and Stiles pick each other back up and lean on each other when he sees they’re both able to.

“You need a shirt,” Stiles tells him. “Where did your shirt go?”

Derek shrugs and limps his way up the stairs.

Stiles strips his flannel. “Here, pretend it’s a shock blanket.”

Derek eyes it for a couple of solid seconds before taking it and draping it over his shoulders.

“Thanks,” he says and it’s so quiet Stiles almost misses it.

“No problem, buddy.”

«»

“Hey Scott, glad for all your backup help, you were really helpful.”

“I was just-“ Scott starts, looking over at where Allison is standing, looking betrayed and confused and angry.

“Sure,” Stiles says and leads Derek outside. The faster they get out of this house the better.

«»

Stiles is shaking.

Derek’s sitting on the passenger side of his jeep and he’s finally fit his arms in Stiles’ jacket and Stiles is shaking. He hiccups a breath and feels the adrenaline crash coming.

His throat clogs up, something thick and suffocating starts blocking his airway and oh _god he can’t breathe, he can’t-_

“Hey, hey Stiles,” Derek’s voice breaks through, something warm wraps around the nape of his neck and he finds his hands pressed against skin. “Breathe with me, okay.”

Derek’s chest expands and he breathes in and Stiles does the same.

It’s okay. Derek’s here, everyone’s okay. It’s fine.

“Come on, Stiles. Breathe in, breathe out.”

_It’s okay_.

He breathes.

«»

They have to take them up for questioning and it’s excruciating, it’s hours and hours of trying to get their stories somewhat straight before they’re released to go home.

Stiles waits for Derek and glares at the deputy who’s squinting after him suspiciously.

“They don’t buy ‘the cuffs weren’t that well fastened’ excuse.”

Stiles pushes Derek out of there as fast as he can. He just wants to go home and sleep forever.

“How _did_ you get out?”

Derek looks down at his wrist, the one where the bracelet Stiles gave him all those years ago is still hanging tightly to and he frowns down at it.

“It just- unlocked.”

“On its own?”

Derek gives a nod.

«»

Kate Argent is being charged with statutory rape, grand arson, conspiracy to commit murder, murder in the first degree, kidnapping, illegal gun possession and assault and battery.

Kate Argent is in a coma in the hospital from the bump she took in the head when Derek threw her off him.

The doctors say there’s a good chance she’ll never wake up.

Stiles thinks if he never hears of her again it’ll be too soon.

«»

It’s been a miserable four days since the incident and Stiles is back at school, fielding his friends’ questions about what the hell has been going on and why they heard from the grapevine that they were involved in police matters.

Lydia slams her tray down at lunch in front of him, glaring as she sits. “What did you do,” she demands.

Stiles stops chewing his mouthful of whatever the hell the mush in his plate is pretending to be and blinks widely at her. He swallows down. “What did I do what?”

Lydia points her knife menacingly over at where Allison’s usual seat is left empty. “Allison,” she states. “She’s not here, Scott looks like some kicked his puppy. What happened? Oh, and I have to find out from _Isaac_ that Derek is staying at your place.”

Stiles throws him a betrayed look. “Bro.”

Isaac ducks his head in shame, like he damn well should. “I’m sorry, she’s just so scary!”

Which true, alright, fair.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Scott and the town’s favorite pseudo-criminal but you _better_ tell me,” Lydia continues, eyes and mouth stuck in her severe ‘I want answers and I want them right this instant’ mode.

Lydia never did too well with not knowing things.

He looks to his left where Isaac is looking guilty and then to his right where Boyd is very studiously not caring and Erica is popping peas in her mouth like it’s popcorn and looking at them like they’re the best movie she’s ever watched.

“And if you know why Jackson has been sneaking around and glaring at Scott that would also be great, thanks.”

“Jackson?” he startles. He doesn’t know anything about Jackson, he hasn’t even noticed what the other boy has been up to lately besides being a mild douchebag to Beacon Hill’s general population.

Lydia’s jaw clamps down and _oh_ so that’s what this is really about.

“I’ll talk with him,” he reassures.

“I’m not asking you to-“

Stiles pushes back and bolts out of there. “Sorry, have to go see where Allison is.”

“Stiles, don’t walk away from me- Stiles!”

“Ooooh, you’re a dead man, Stilinski!” Erica calls out just as he ducks through the cafeteria double doors and heads for the library.

«»

He finds Allison in the back of the library, nibbling on a sandwich and frowning down at the desk she’s sitting at like it’ll suddenly solve every problem she’s ever had.

Stiles slides smoothly into the seat in front of her, which is to say he trips over his feet a little and almost falls face first on the floor.

“Hey Ally A.” he greets, offering up a smile.

Allison frowns at him. “I’m not supposed to talk with you,” she says carefully. “I don’t know if I _want_ to talk with you.”

Stiles steals a cookie from a little container she had sitting in front of her and takes a bite. “Fair,” he nods, talking with his mouth full of frankly delicious cookie. “Can I ask why?”

“You’re friends with monsters.”

The cookie turns a little sour in his mouth and he swallows it roughly, straightening up and looking at Allison flatly, a little disappointedly too.

“Did anyone tell you about the Hales, Allison?”

“My dad-“

“They were a great family. They were kind, the house was always filled with children and the kind of familial squabbling only happy families have, you know. Maybe you don’t. Anyways, everyone loved the Hales, they were nice, they helped anyone in need, you know the kind of people I’m talking about right?”

“That’s not what-“

“I knew them, they were my friends, I went over more times that I can count and never once, not one single time did they make me fear for my life, not once did they do _anything_ to hurt me.

“They were good people. Until your aunt decided, just because they could turn furry they should die. She _burned them_. Do you know how many people were in that basement in that day-“

“I understand, I-“

“How many _children?_ Charlie was the youngest, she was four. She wanted to be an astronaut when she grew up so she could plant flowers on the moon-“

“Stop! I get it-“

“Katie wanted to travel to Africa and pet a real life lion because she was _obsessed_ with them, Tom liked to climb to the highest place he could find and tell everyone he was practicing for the Everest, they were both eight. Olivia volunteered at the-“

Allison’s eyes get shiny with tears. “I get it, please, stop.”

“ _They_ are not the monsters here, Allison. _They_ didn’t kill children. _They_ didn’t kidnap someone and torture them for kicks after burning their entire family alive, did they?”

Stiles exhales harshly and unclamps his jaw slowly. He hates this.

“No,” she says, barely audible. “No they weren’t. I just-“ She starts fiddling with the sleeves on her shirt, sandwich long dropped, when she looks up she looks so lost, so insecure that the fight bleeds out of Stiles.

“It’s just a lot- to take in and I don’t know how to-“

“You don’t have to take it in all at once,” he tells her, gentling his tone. “But you don’t have to alienate your friends either, Ally. We’re your _friends_. Lydia almost had my head when she saw you were avoiding her today. We all care about you, Scott the most of us.”

“I know- I know all of this, but I need time.”

Stiles reaches over and takes one of her hands, squeezes it. “Tell him that. What you’re doing isn’t fair to him. And you have the rest of us. We’re all painfully human here, alright?”

She takes a slow breath and nods her head, offering a shaky smile.

“Alright.”

Stiles nods, gives her a reassuring smile. “We got your back, Ally A.”

«»

He convinces Allison to come back to the cafeteria somehow.

“My dad just paints werewolf in a, um, different light.”

Stiles snorts. “Yeah, I bet.”

There’s a low growl and Stiles immediately snaps his head up, watching Scott stand off against Jackson.

“Um? Should we- be worried?” Allison asks, stepping a little behind Stiles.

“Nah,” he dismisses easily. “Jackson’s probably just being a dick and _Scott_ ,” he raises his voice a little on his name, making sure he has the werewolf’s attention before he continues, “should probably stop growling in the school hallways like a moron. Sound tends to carry, Scotty boy.”

Scott snaps his head to him, eyes going wide when he sees Allison and takes an involuntary step forward.

Allison shuffles behind Stiles’ back. “I’m not ready yet,” she says.

Stiles shakes his head at Scott who frowns.

Stiles sighs and holds his hand up touching the palm of his right hand to the tips of the fingers on his left in the time-out sign.

Scott turns impossibly wide eyes at Allison but nods, backing off.

Jackson makes a grab at his shoulder and pulls, making Scott face him again.

Stiles sighs heavily, anticipating another mess he’ll have to deal with. But that particular mess he thinks he’ll ignore until he absolutely needs to.

«»

Lydia follows him to his car after school and doesn’t say a word as she hops into the front seat, ignoring Boyd, Erica, Isaac and Stiles’ confused faces.

She throws her car keys at Isaac who fumbles for them.

“Um, I guess I’ll take your car home?” Isaac says carefully, eyeing Lydia like she might bite him.

“We’ll go with you,” Boyd announces, pulling Erica along.

“Wait what? No! I want to watch Lydia kill Stiles. Guys, _come on_.”

Stiles grins, shaking his head after her. Erica pouts exaggeratedly and makes Boyd carry her the rest of the way.

“Are you going to get in the car or stare after the puppies all afternoon?” Lydia demands

“Puppies?” Stiles questions, getting into his beat up Jeep.

She shrugs a shoulder disinterestedly.

“Right,” Stiles says and turns the key in the ignition, backing out of the parking lot.

Lydia is dangerously quiet, staring out of the window without twitching a muscle, her entire demeanor making Stile’s nerves frazzle.

He taps the steering wheel anxiously, biting down on his tongue to stop himself from blabbering.

When Lydia’s like this you better just let her speak up first, because if you dare talk then she’ll just stare the truth right out of you.

It has happened before and Stiles is sure that will happen in the future many more times.

“I want to know what’s happening,” she demands, finally turning to Stiles, eyes hard with her resolve. “I have a few theories, but they’re all a little bit out there.”

“Try me. You’d be surprised how out there it actually is.”

She hums eyes skipping back to the side of the road, as if readying herself.

“At first I thought drugs,” she confesses. “But I know you wouldn’t do that to your dad. Not anything heavier than pot, anyways. Then I thought loan sharks and mafia, but those are severely lacking in Beacon Hills and you somehow made friends with the biggest family around last year.”

“I still have no idea how I befriend his drag queen girlfriend.”

Lydia rolls her eyes and continues, “ _Then_ I thought Derek had gone off the deep end and turned into some sort of serial killer that was going around murdering people.”

“What did you settle on?”

“Werewolves.”

Stiles feels like he should laugh. He doesn’t even know why he bothered asking Lydia this.

“How did you jump to that conclusion?”

“The Hales, of course. And Scott. He skipped school the last full moon, then there’s the howling, even though there are no wolves in California. It might’ve helped that Jackson was talking about it with Danny the other day.”

“Danny knows?”

“So I’m right. It’s werewolves.”

Stiles sighs and takes the final turn to his street. “You’re right.”

Lydia goes quiet for the time that takes him to park the car in his driveway, get out and go around to open the door for her.

“You’re telling me everything you know about it,” she states, leaving absolutely no margin for discussion on this matter.

“Alright. I have some printed stuff upstairs-“

“Of course you do.”

Stiles throws an arm over her shoulders and leads her inside.

“Don’t think I’m not mad at you for not telling me earlier. I just haven’t thought of an adequate punishment.”

Stiles huffs a breath. “Of course, my queen.”

She stomps on his foot. “Don’t call me that. We’re not in third grade anymore.”

He grins down at her. “You love it and we both know it.”

Lydia sniffs primly and steps aside to let Stiles open up the door.

“Why the hell not!” he hears Jackson thunder as soon as he steps foot inside.

“You wouldn’t be able to handle it,” Derek answers and Stiles has to take a minute to stare because what the hell.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” he demands, stepping inside and suppressing the need to set both hands on his hips and maybe throw a vase or two at their heads for being morons.

“Jackson wants the bite.”

Stiles’ eyebrows climb sky high and he’s not sure why he’s surprised by this. Of course Jackson would want anything that would make him be better at everything. Of course he would want to snatch the opportunity to become something that could turn him into someone at his parents’ eyes.

“And?”

“And I said no.”

Stiles opens his mouth to ask why but something makes him click it shut.

Lydia storms forward towards Jackson and ohboy this isn’t going to be even a little bit pretty.

“You were seriously going to do this without telling me?” she demands, straightening her shoulders and glaring daggers up at her boyfriend. “Did you even think of the consequences? Do you even _know_ what you’re getting yourself into?!”

“I’m not a complete idiot,” Jackson hisses. “And this doesn’t concern you.”

“How the hell doesn’t this concern me? I’m your _girlfriend_. We’re supposed to make decisions together. We’re supposed to support each other and not run off to become a lycanthrope.”

Jackson grits his teeth, glaring right back down. “This. Doesn’t.Concern. You,” he reiterates. “I don’t have to run every decision by you.”

“You’re a jackass!” Lydia accuses.

Stiles wonders if it would be smart to intervene or just let them have it out before he tries to do anything. They all know which side he’d pick if he had to pick a side.

He looks over at Derek and sees the other man hunched a little, slowly shuffling backwards, one shout away from bolting it out of there.

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him when their eyes catch and Derek huffs, rolls his eyes and does something complicated with his eyebrows that Stiles interprets as _why is this my life? why are your friends bothering me? why people? just in general, why people?_

He crosses the room towards Derek so he can be heard over the noise of those two going at each other’s throats like it’s going out of style.

Stiles is not really worried, they never go out of style, those two.

“Why did you say no?” he asks, nudging Derek’s arm softly towards the kitchen, so they both can have a sit down and not be on the sidelines of the battlefield that has somehow become Stiles’ living room.

“He’s lying,” Derek says simply. “I asked him why he wanted it, and he lied. So I said no.”

Derek sits at his kitchen table and Stiles goes about making himself his afternoon coffee, well he would go about doing it if there wasn’t a freshly made and still warm pot made.

He hums, pleased and fills a mug.

“Want some?” he turns to ask.

Derek shakes his head and Stiles doesn’t push. He noticed the empty mug on the sink that he knows is not his. Derek always did prefer tea. Maybe coffee is just too strong for werewolves, who knows.

Stiles shrugs, and turns to sit down in front of him.

“So,” he starts, taking a sip and licking his lips at the bitter taste of coffee, just like he likes it. “What did he say?”

Derek blinks, eyebrows confused.

“You said he lied when you asked why he wanted the bite and so you said no. So, what did he say when you asked.”

Derek sighs. “He wants to be stronger, faster. He wants to win at everything.” He twists his nose adorably, clearly displeased with the answer.

“And he was lying?”

Derek nods once.

“Also that’s really not the kind of answer you want to get if you’re recruiting for a pack, is it?” he wonders.

Derek shakes his head, leaning back on the chair and crossing his arms over his chest, a frown on his face.

Stiles takes another sip of his coffee and tries not to stare too much at Derek and how he seems to be bursting out of his shirt.

He makes a mental note to take him shopping. Something that tight cannot be comfortable.

“I’ll talk with him. Try to find out why he really wants it.”

Derek nods, grunts a little assent.

“Which seems to be for the best anyway since you’ve reversed to grunting.”

Derek glowers at him and huffs.

“Talking so much tired you out, big guy? Used your word quota for the day?”

Derek growls and Stiles smirks, holds eye contact until Derek shakes his head and looks away.

“You should work on your self-preservation skills,” Derek advises, pushing off the table and heading out the backdoor, leading to the yard.

Stiles calmly sips on his coffee as the fight in the living room raises in tone.

He sighs, taking the phone out of his pocket and hitting speed dial eight.

“I’m already heading towards your house,” Danny tells him.

“Why does Jackson want to be a werewolf?” he counters.

Danny sighs. “Besides him being pissed that McCall is suddenly better than him at lacrosse?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Come on, Danny. We both know Jackson isn’t as superficial as he plays himself out to be.”

Danny is quiet for a beat the sound of the car rolling down a street the only thing coming from the other end of the receiver.

“His parents. They don’t really- care anymore.”

Stiles presses his lips together because this is a story he knows. Two people want to have a baby, they want to have a cute little thing to show off and call theirs but they don’t want a person. They don't want something that has opinions and talks back and doesn’t thread the thin line they set out for them.

“He tried to find his birthparents last summer,” Danny continues quietly. “It- we didn’t really get anywhere, but what we did find out- it wasn’t good.”

“How not good?”

“Drug addicts in the bad part of town not good.”

Stiles nods slowly, glancing over at the living room where things have fallen back to quiet, harsh whispers.

“He did research about what being part of a pack meant?”

Danny makes a confirming sound and says, “I’m turning towards your street.”

Stiles pushes himself up and sets his mug by the counter. “I’ll open the door for you. Maybe we can talk some sense into Jackson. Being a werewolf really isn’t all that’s cracked to be.”

“He just wants-“

“Family. A support system. It’s stupid. He has us.”

“Maybe he wants to make sure he can protect what he has now.”

Stiles ignores Jackson and Lydia as he passes by them and opens the front door, watching Danny come down the street in his dad’s car. He waves a little and waits for him.

“Why couldn’t he just say so?”

Danny huffs something that could sound like a laugh. “Have you _met_ Jackson?”

The car turns into Stiles’ driveway and Danny steps out, taking his phone away from his ear and ending the call.

“So how do you wanna do this? You go in alone or we double time him?”

Danny raises both eyebrows. “Depends are we talking to him or doing a porno.”

Stiles opens his mouth. Closes it again. Clears his throat and he’s sure he might be blushing. “Is the second one an option?”

Danny laughs and shoves him away with a friendly bump on the shoulder.

“Not an option then?” Stiles asks.

“Stiles,” Danny warns and he backs off, knowing when Danny’s reached his quota of Stiles’ awkward flirting or bad puns or whatever you want to call what he does.

“Right.More important things to worry about right now. Like your best friend wanting to turn furry at will and go on a rampage once a month.”

Danny nods. “Nice work filling us in on what was going on, by the way.”

Stiles winces. “I was busy. And I didn’t want to involve you guys, not when there were crazy murderous people murderin’ everyone.”

“Uh-huh,” Danny says and walks ahead of Stiles towards the living room.

Jackson is standing towering over Lydia like he only does when he’s angry and Lydia seems to be giving as hard as she gets, tilting her chin up and looking about five seconds away from making a hole in Jackson’s foot with her sharp stiletto heels.

“You’re supposed to _trust me_ ,” Lydia accuses.

“I didn’t want to get you involved!”

“Because I’m not important enough to you-“

Jackson clenches his fits, face flushed with anger. “Because this is fucking _dangerous_.”

“I can take care of myself!”

“Whoa alright guys time out,” Stiles calls. “Danny’s here now, he can talk for Jackson since he’s so emotionally stunted that saying he cares about Lydia too much to risk her life would require some form of torture.”

Jackson pulls his lips over his teeth and look at that he’s learning already. “Fuck off, Stiles.”

“Charming,” he drawls. “Telling me to fuck off in my own house. Now sit the fuck down and let’s talk about feelings before I make you sit down-“

Jackson lifts an eyebrow.

“Before I ask Danny to make you sit down,” he corrects.

Jackson huffs and tries shouldering pas them with a careless “I don’t have time for this bullshit” but Stiles and Danny catch him by the shoulders and force him down on the couch.

“You want to be a werewolf, huh?” Stiles challenges.

Jackson pulls a face like he’s seriously considering smashing a lamp over Stiles’ head but doesn’t say no.

“You want to be fast? You want to be better than everyone else? Then you sit the fuck down and you _listen_ because right now I’m the only thing that’s going to convince the Alpha to turn your stupid ass.”

“Fine,” Jackson hisses and crosses his arms over his chest. “Let’s get this over with.”

Danny plops himself down next to Jackson and bumps their shoulders comfortingly not saying anything. He’s always figured Danny and Jackson had a more of a quiet supportive thing going on than anything else.

Lydia sits herself in an armchair, crosses her legs and leans back like she’s about to watch a bloodbath and she’s not particularly pleased with it.

“This ought to be interesting,” she remarks.

Stiles sighs and lets himself fall into the coffee table.

“Right. Let’s start then.”

«»

The conversation is like pulling teeth, each truth has to be plied out of Jackson at great cost and when they’re done Jackson’s eyes have a shine to them that he won’t admit to in a million years and no one will acknowledge out of camaraderie.

Thankfully Lydia stopped looking like she was three seconds away from disemboweling her boyfriend using only the sharpened end of a toothbrush around the same time Jackson’s voice started breaking talking about his parents.

By the end they get all the reasons Jackson wants to become a werewolf and sure being fast, having everything enhanced plays a great part in it, he’s still Jackson he still wants to be the best at everything he possibly can, but most of it is his need to protect Lydia, his need to keep one of the good things in his life safe.

He also wants the closeness pack seems to bring since he watched how close Scott and Stiles seemed to have been lately, full of secrets and looking like they went to war together and came back victorious. Well, he figures that might be it by the way he sometimes squints at them, a hint of jealously apparent by his otherwise douche façade.

For however much of a jackass Jackson acts like, all he’s ever really wanted was people who would look after them, he has a need to be supported and support and just be acknowledged and appreciated that might bother on codependency and there’s no bigger codependent relationship than that of a pack.

Stiles takes a moment, a couple of seconds after everyone went quiet to wonder what would’ve happened if he hadn’t befriended Lydia all that time ago, causing Jackson to join their group, how Jackson would’ve grown up to be then.

He figures his levels of raging douchenoozle would’ve gone through the roof and something deep in his marrow tells him it would be an abomination of a terrible thing.

“I’ll talk to Derek,” he says and watches Jackson’s muscles relax a little bit.

“After the spring dance,” Lydia says.

“What?”

“If you want to turn into a werewolf _fine_. I’ll support your stupid ass decision, but you’ll do it _after_ the winter formal because I have planned this meticulously and I will not let you get in the way.”

Jackson opens his mouth but Stiles interrupts.

“I think what she means is, if you’re gonna do this, do it during winter break when you have time to adjust and not while you have to attend a school full of hormonal teenagers that you might feel inclined to take a chomp out of.”

Jackson shuts his mouth and grinds his jaw, considering, before he nods, slow and measure.

“Fine. I don’t understand why you make such a big deal of it. If McCall can do it, it can’t be that hard.”

“You’d be surprised.”

«»

“You think I should bite him,” Derek states, one finger tapping on his fork, slow and measured, a physical manifestation of him pondering this option.

“I think Jackson always gets what he wants and if this is what he wants. Besides you need a pack and he’s willing to do it.”

Derek looks across the table at where the Sheriff has been quietly eating his dinner, looking for guidance.

“I can’t tell you what to do here, son. I don’t understand much of this werewolf mumbo jumbo and I’m not exactly happy to be adding to the werewolf population. It means one more kid that could go crazy and kill people, but it can also mean someone else to keep you and Stiles safe.”

Derek nods, looks down at his plate and twirls his spaghetti.

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask for,” Stiles grins and proceeds to slurp all of his spaghetti obnoxiously.

«»

Stiles stands awkwardly in front of the full mirror that hides behind his closet door, staring at himself with distaste.

He’s too skinny, too awkward to be wearing formal clothes like this.

He looks like a young boy playing dress-up with his father’s clothes. His pants are too baggy and his shirt hangs off of him. He could be wearing a sack of potatoes and he would look the same.

“Urgh,” he tells his reflection.

There’s a careful knock on his door before it opens, Derek standing there awkwardly.

“That Lydia girl dropped this off,” he says handing Stiles a hanger with a pressed suit inside.

Stiles sighs and plucks it off Derek’s grasp holding at arm’s length with a twist of his nose. “I told her I didn’t need a new suit. This is perfectly _fine_.”

“That’s your father’s,” Derek points out, leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest, a tight frown marring his face.

“What are you? The fashion police? What’s wrong with it being my father’s?”

“Besides the fact that three of you could fit there?”

“I’m skinny I know I don’t need you to point that out to me.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Put on the suit, Stiles. Your friend threatened to release a thousand fire ants in your bed if you didn’t.”

Stiles groans. “Fine, whatever. My pride isn’t worth the wrath of Lydia Martin.”

“Pride? You sure you still got that?”

“Oh someone is feeling funny today. Got a funny bone do you?” Stiles unzips the bag where the pressed suit had came in and says to Derek, “Don’t test me Hale I still remember where you’re ticklish weaknesses are.”

Derek has both eyebrows raised at him now, a small smirk hiding just in the corner of his lips.

“So do it.” And with that he twists around and exits Stiles’ doorway closing the door behind him and leaving Stiles doing some kind of face that’s half dropped jaw, half squint in suspicion.

He decides to let it go and put on the damn suit.

It fits him like a glove. It’s pretty terrible.

«»

“Dad stop,” Stiles complains, blinking against the flash of the camera. “It’s just the winter formal it’s not prom.”

The camera snaps a couple more times before his father lowers it and sighs wistfully. “You’re so grown up.”

“Don’t get emotional on me, old man.”

The Sheriff pulls him into a hug and Stiles goes willingly, clutching at his father’s uniform, knowing he had taken a long break just so he could bid Stiles goodbye before he went to the dance.

His dad leans back and holds him by the shoulders. “Remember if you need anything call dispatch or-“

“Or Derek. Yeah I know. I’m going to a high school dance not to do drugs in the bad part of town dad.”

“With you I never know.”

There’s a soft snort and Stiles turns to where Derek is currently hiding behind a book glaring dangerously.

“You suck,” he calls out before turning to the door. “I have to go pick up the guys so we can all go together. See, perfectly safe, I’ll be accompanied at all times and there will be no alcohol whatsoever.”

“ _Stiles_ -“

“I’m serious. Erica can’t drink anyways and I have to drive everyone back home so.”

The Sheriff claps him on the back of the neck and uses the motion to nudge him towards the door. "Alright. I’m trusting you not to do anything illegal.”

“I can’t believe you have so little faith in me.”

“I would have more but your criminal record started when you were twelve.”

There’s another amused sound from the living room and Stiles turns again, opens his mouth ready to point out that he’s not the only one with a criminal record here, but then he remembers most of the times Derek ended up at the station were a member of his family’s fault and he snaps it closed again.

His phone rings in his pocket and he fishes it out, wincing as he sees Lydia’s name flash across the screen.

“Yeah I’m on my way,” he answers.

“You _better_. Everyone is ready to go, stop making out with Hale and hurry up, Stiles.”

He splutters into the receiver, indignation on the tip of his tongue but Lydia has already ended the call.

He glares down at his phone as he pockets it and rushes out the door.

“See you later, dad. Don’t wait up!” he yells over his shoulder, starting up his Jeep and peeling off to pick up his friends.

«»

The winter formal is _fun_.

Stiles gets to embarrass everyone on the dancefloor in turns, breaking out the dorkiest moves he can possibly think of until even Boyd is laughing and pushing his face away from where he’d been waggling his eyebrows ridiculously at him.

After about an hour of this he slides into the sit next to Allison, nudges her shoulder with his and points over at where Scott is looking like a dejected puppy as Isaac makes him spin on the dancefloor.

“You should go ask him to dance,” he tells her.

“Are you telling me that as Scott’s wingman?”

“I’m telling you that as both your and Scott’s friend.”

Allison fiddles with the hem of her dress, before taking a steadying breath and getting to her feet.

Stiles grins at her and watches as she strides across the dance floor, Scott’s eyes immediately honed on her, and taps on Isaac’s shoulder before Scott is passed to her arms, a silly smile on his lips.

Now that that’s taken care of, he turns around to see most of his friends either lounging on the table they had claimed for themselves, passing a bottle under it and tacking quick daring sips.

Stiles flops down into a seat between Danny and Erica and snags the bottle, taking a small sip before passing it along.

“You better not have been drinking, missy,” he points a finger at Erica, grinning at her.

“Hypocrite,” she accuses, jabbing him sharply in the kidney and leaning back so she’s pressed against Boyd. “You’re lucky Boyd’s a gentleman and is keeping me company.”

“Now I just feel bad,” he tells her, nudging her calf with his smart shoes. “Come on, up Reyes we’re going to go do something _fun_.”

Erica bounces to her feet, grabbing his hand. “Like what?”

“Like-“ he pauses and considers his options until he remembers something he has stashed in the back of his garage. “Like fireworks.”

She laughs and he sees the rest of them getting up to follow.

“Your dad is going to _murder_ you.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him,” he says, reaches for his punch cup and downs it before flagging Scott and Allison and crooking a finger for them to follow.

Dances are fun, but they aren’t fun for _long_. Better bail before the fun runs out.

«»

Stiles gets the fireworks and trips out of his garage following the pack to the back of his house and through the little dirt path that leads into the forest.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Derek’s gruff voice calls out and Stiles winces.

“Nothing,” he mutters, keeping his back very straight and not turning back to the house, keeping the fireworks hidden away from Derek with his body.

“Are you seriously going to set fireworks off in the middle of the woods? At night? Without supervision?”

Stiles turns slowly. “You could be our supervision.”

“No.”

“Derek, come on. I’m just trying to give my friends something special.”

“Then circle jerk each other, don’t attempt arson.”

Stiles chokes on his spit.

“Hey, Stiles what’s taking so lon- hello,” Danny says, smiling his nicest smile at Derek, before leaning over to Stiles. “Daddy werewolf?” he asks and Stiles almost coughs a lung, cheeks heating up.

“ _Alpha_ werewolf,” Derek corrects.

Danny gives him a slow once over and hums, apparently liking what he sees but then again who _wouldn’t_. This is Derek Hale.

“Cool. He joining?”

“Yes!” Sties yells. “Derek please. Pleeeease. If my dad finds out I’ll tell him you were trying to stop us like the good citizen you are.”

Derek flexes the arms crossed over his chest and Stiles thinks he almost has him.

“And if you burn down the forest.”

“We won’t,” Stiles promises. “I know how to work my stuff and if we do there’ll be one more of us to call the fire department.”

Derek looks heavenwards at the porch light and the few insects buzzing about it before he nods and starts going down the steps, looking annoyed and resigned.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Stiles whoops and throws an arm over Danny’s shoulder, almost dropping some of the fireworks on the floor.

«»

He and Danny set everything up as the rest of his friends lay on the soft grass of the clearing they chose for this, chatting with each other and looking upwards at the night sky expectantly.

“I’ll set them off, you two join the others.”

“No, Derek, I-“

Derek turns and flashes his eyes at him. “You. Will not. Set these off.”

Stiles glares back for a couple of seconds before huffing and nudging a very curious Danny off and back into the group.

Derek lights them up and rushes backwards, chin tilted up.

They collectively hold their breaths and in bare seconds the fireworks light up and shoot off into the sky, lighting it up in reds and blues and oranges and yellows with loud pops that must grate on a werewolf’s hearing if the way Scott winces every time one goes off is any indication.

There’s always a lot of different reactions to fireworks being shot off.

Whoops of joy and encouragement, breathless laughs of wonder, open mouthed awe, a held breath of wonder. Those little reactions are almost as worthy of watching as the actual light show.

Stiles cruises his eyes over his friends watching Isaac and Erica whoops and holler, even joining them himself, Lydia and Allison and Scott and Boyd smile as the colors bounce off their faces, eyes wide. Danny laughs breathlessly at it and Jackson is staring caught between a breath and the other.

He looks over at Derek and it’s maybe one of the best things he’s ever witnessed.

Blue flashing momentarily over his features, his chin tilted up into the night sky so he can watch, mouth a little open in awe with his bunny teeth peeking out, eyes wide and expression lax and unmarred by frowns.

Stiles holds his breath and watches him.

The way something in him just seems to relax and slip away, completely transfixed by the magic happening in the sky, like for just a minute everything weighting him down has been lifted.

Someone nudges Stiles’ shoulder and he turns to see Lydia with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smile on the corner of her lips.

“Enjoy the view Stiles,” she asks him, tilting her chin upwards and the raising an eyebrow towards Derek.

“I am,” he says and grins, bumping her shoulder gently, hoping that whatever happens next they can always come back to this. A moment of magic and wonder in between real life where everyone can breathe out and just- just be _happy_ , even if it’s just for a moment.

He sneaks another glance at Derek.

Yeah, that’s all he wishes for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there you go! i hope i didn't disappoint you too much with this and you can always [find me on tumblr](http://crossroadswrite.tumblr.com) if you want updates in how i'm doing on the next chapter
> 
> right now i'm planning to write next (two???) chapters during NaNoWriMo. we'll see how well that'll go.

**Author's Note:**

> Please be kind and patient I am making an effort to finish this. If you're looking for info on updates please check the beginning notes.
> 
> **EDIT:** Alright, at this point, I'm more inclined to not finish this than I am to do it. It's been a really long time since I touched it, and I'm not happy with the writing I have done or the planning I had for the future of this fic.
> 
> That said, I'm not saying I will _never_ finish it, but odds are, I probably won't. This fic, as it stands, it's as good as complete. I said I would make every chapter end in such a way that the fic could end and there would be no open endings and I did it.
> 
> This is your official update. As of right now, I have no plans to pick this fic back up nor do I have the time, please stop spamming me with "will you finish this?!?!?!?" because not only is it discouraging, but it's also bad form to do it. Thank you for your attention.
> 
> **Final Update:** I've sadly left the fandom, so all hope for this fic to be picked up is gone :(


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